


Elementary 21: The Baker Street Years X (1902-1904)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary: The Complete Cases of Castiel Novak (and Dean Winchester) [21]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Edwardian, Blow Jobs, Destiel - Freeform, Disinheritance, Duelling, Eloping, F/F, F/M, Forgery, Gay Sex, Handcuffs, Identity Issues, London, M/M, Murder, Restraints, Scenting, Theft, Vibrators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-25 20:52:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4976119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Case 109. CROATOAN (The Case Of The Faithless Frenchwoman, Over Which Cas Refused A Knighthood)<br/><b>Case 110. THE THIRD MAN (formerly 'The Adventure Of The Illustrious Client')</b><br/>Case 111. READING IS FUNDAMENTAL (The Case Of The Duke of Greyminster)<br/>Case 112. BLOODLUST (The Case Of Mr. Fairdale Hobbs)<br/>Case 113. YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH (The Case Of The Venomous Lizard)<br/><b>Case 114. METAMORPHOSIS (formerly 'The Adventure Of The Blanched Soldier')</b><br/><b>Case 115. THE BORN-AGAIN IDENTITY (formerly 'The Adventure Of The Three Gables')</b><br/><b>Case 116. SCARECROW (formerly 'The Adventure Of The Mazarin Stone')</b><br/><b>Case 117. HEART (formerly 'The Adventure Of The Creeping Man')</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

So. 

Two years left in which Cas would continue to use his talents for the general good of society, and then that was it. We would retire to the Sussex countryside to live in domestic bliss, untroubled by the demands and pressures of the lives we had hitherto led. It seemed almost too good to be true.

Of course, I strongly suspected that it was too good to be true. Either some disaster would befall us, and I would somehow lose the love of my life at this late stage in the proceedings, or even if we made it to Sussex, there would be frequent demands from all and sundry for Cas to do this, that or the other for them. Even though I had Cas, I could surely not be that lucky and avoid something going amiss.

Yet for once, my cynicism was misplaced. We made it through those final cases, Cas as sharp and brilliant as ever, and successfully established ourselves in our new home. And whilst I missed Baker Street a little, I had Cas, and I was content. No, I was deliriously happy! I had the man I loved, as impossible as ever before his coffee in the morning, and I was living in my own personal Heaven.

Though thank God that the village shop sold bacon!


	2. Case 109: Croatoan (1902)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously unpublished, mentioned only as 'the case for which Cas refused a knighthood'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Cas was, in the course of events, more than usually rough with me during this adventure. But he had done more on several occasions beforehand, and I always knew that a single word would stop him in his tracks. He loved me too much to hurt me, and he only did what he did because he loved me so much anyway.

I

It was perhaps well that our next case after our return from the south of England happened so quickly, for I know all too well that I am minded to dwell on things, and over-analyze them to the point of destruction. I simply could not believe that Cas was prepared to give up his career and retire with me to some little cottage in the middle of nowhere. It seemed all too good to be true – except he had commissioned a local artist to draw the place, and when I walked back into our rooms on our return, the picture was hanging over the fireplace, a permanent reminder of what was to come and one I often looked at in those cold autumn days. It seemed almost too good to be true, and I resolved to redouble my efforts to prevent him facing any dangers in the months that lay between us and the cottage.

In retrospect, I might have done better to focus my efforts on myself.

+~+~+

About the only downside to our plan for the future was that it would of necessity involve the tiresome Mr. Balthazar Novak, whom Cas had grudgingly accepted back into his good books after a fulsome apology shortly before the Garrideb case. My books about Cas were so popular now that any suggestion that we were living quietly in a country cottage would have my readers (I still hated the term 'fandom', with a passion!) searching high and low for us. Balthazar's offices would be needed to not only lay a false trail abroad when the time came for the move, but to also provide us with false identities for our new lives after Baker Street. 

I might have known that he would want something in return. And of course, that it would lead to trouble. Yet it was a request that seemed so trivial that I did not see the danger until it, quite literally, fell upon me!

I had precious few regular patients by this time, except for some older ones I had attended whilst at the surgery, and who wished me to continue as their doctor. I felt that I owed the surgery a debt for standing by me in those early days, so I still stood on hand as a spare doctor at busy times and also undertook certain fund-raising activities, mostly attending the sort of social events that I frankly hated. Cas, bless him, often came with me and shared the ordeal. And bearing in mind my plans to decamp to the countryside for good, I felt obliged to offer my former employers a little something more before I went. So when my publishers, Brett, Burke and Hardwicke, decided to publish a special hardback edition of my twenty best published cases (drum roll - with revised notes!), I proposed an auction of a limited number of signed copies to raise funds for the surgery. I had planned to restrict it to just twenty, offering to write a personal dedication for the lucky winners, but demand was far greater than either I or the publishers had anticipated, and in the end we settled on two hundred and twenty-three books, numbered from 1 to 221B to be sold at auction. The amount raised was staggering, and Balthazar Novak surprised me by buying one himself. It turned out, however, that he wanted it as a present for a Mademoiselle Evadne Duguesclin, the daughter of the French ambassador to Great Britain – oh, and he also requested that I deliver it to the lady myself. 

It was that request that was to lead to no end of problems. 

+~+~+

The ambassador's daughter lived at his private residence just outside the pretty village of Woodmansterne in Surrey, so it was to that locality that I journeyed one fine Saturday morning at the start of December. I went alone; Cas was attending a family function of some sort, one involving his brothers judging from the hang-dog expression on his face as he departed. And that was after three cups of coffee! He had been extra demanding in bed that morning, with the result that my suburban train-ride had been more uncomfortable than usual.

Though the memories were good. And he had paid for a first-class ticket both ways, saying he wanted me in good form for the evening. Gulp!

I had telegraphed ahead to say that I would be arriving at half-past ten in the morning, and a few minutes before the appointed time my carriage drew up outside Croatoan. I wondered at the tactlessness of the French ambassador naming his private house for the destruction of the first English settlement on mainland North America, and knocked on the door, hoping this was not some sort of omen.

Regrettably, it was. About five seconds later, there was the sound of a forcible expression – 'hah!' - coming from behind the door. Then it was pulled violently open by a lady in her mid-twenties, prettily dressed but with a furious expression on her face. She glanced behind her, to where a young alpha was holding his face as if he had just been slapped, then I saw a knowing expression in her eyes that I did not like at all.

And then she kissed me. Very, very thoroughly.

Typically, my first thought was a silent prayer of thanks that Cas was nowhere around to witness this. I would not call him jealous, but only because an angry Cas is something best witnessed from the next galaxy. My second thought was still forming when the lady pulled away.

“Oh good, you're here!” she said, sounding relieved. “Come on!”

She grabbed me and dragged me forcibly back to the cab, whose driver I had asked to wait just in case. The man from the house, who looked vaguely foreign and definitely annoyed, hurried to the door after her.

“Evie!” he called out. “Please!”

She ignored him, and for a small woman she was surprisingly strong. I found myself being pulled into the cab, and she called to the driver to take us into the town, leaving the young man standing there clearly at a loss. As was I. I turned and looked at her.

“You must be Doctor Winchester”, she said in flawless English. “I am Mademoiselle Evadne Duguesclin. I believe you have a book for me?”

“Um, yes”, I managed incoherently. I reached into my bag and handed it to her. “Balthazar Novak said you had yet to choose an inscription?”

“Let's have lunch, and I'll think of something”, she said gaily.

Right. Lunch. I could do that.

Probably.

+~+~+

“And she drags me to this place where the prices... well, they were outrageous! Not a word of apology either, just kidnapped me then and there!”

The amount of sympathy I was receiving from across the dinner table was underwhelming. Cas chuckled.

“And this lady did not even explain her actions?” he said at last. “Why did you not just ask her?”

I glared at him.

“Oh sorry”, I said sarcastically. “Excuse me, madam, would you please pass me the sugar and your reasons for a) kissing me on your doorstep, and b) kidnapping me for lunch. And I even had to pay for it!”

“And the lady young enough to be your daughter”, he smiled.

“I said almost young enough”, I grumbled. “Almost! She might have been in her early thirties, for all I knew. Still, I suppose I am still an attractive man.”

He raised an eyebrow at that.

“And you enjoyed the kiss?” he asked.

I could sense the sudden tension in the room. It was like that awful moment for a husband when his wife suddenly turns to him and asks, 'does this make my figure look too big?'. The only safe answers are either to pretend deafness, to effect a rapid change of subject, or to pray for a sudden lightning strike.

In a far too frequent moment of foot-in-mouth disease, I did none of those.

“Of course”, I said. “She was quite pretty.”

He looked at me across the table, and damnation, he actually growled. I winced.

“Bedroom!” he snarled. “Now!”

II

Of course I was not to be pushed around in such a way. I was an alpha, not some omega who just laid back and took his alpha's knot every time he commanded it. I had standards, for Heaven's sake!

I made it to the bedroom in less than ten seconds, and was undressed and on the bed in little more than a minute. I had assumed he was undressing in the main room, but when he entered he was still fully clothed. And the look on his face was fearsome!

He quickly got out the handcuffs and leather restraints he had got from Henriksen (I definitely recall the smirk on the old man's face!), and made short work of tying my hands and feet to the four corners of the bed. I was already hard, and torn between fear at what he might be about to do to me and fear as to what he might not. He stood back and eyed his work contentedly.

“Good”, he smiled. “I am going out.”

“What?” I managed, aghast. Surely he would not be so cruel.

“Clearly you need a lesson as to whose mate you are, Dean”, he said sharply. “I am going to spend at least two hours at the gym, working up a sweat, then I am going to come home and mark you as mine.”

And then he completed his work by first clipping on a cock-ring around my full erection, then rapidly working me open before inserting the vibrator in. 

“I do not think I need to gag you”, he said thoughtfully. “The maids know not to come into the room whilst the door is shut. I shall see you presently. Good day, Dean.”

I whimpered, but he ignored me and left, shutting the door behind him. I winced as the vibrator nudged my prostate, and my cock swelled angrily at being denied release; the bastard had put the ring on its tightest setting. 

+~+~+

I must have somehow fallen asleep, because the next thing I remember was a sweaty alpha clambering all over me, scenting every part of me he could reach. I groaned pleasurably. 

“I hope you have learned your lesson”, he said sternly. “I do not share, Dean. Not ever.”

“I had no choice!” I said defensively. “She jumped me, not the other way round.”

“I still need to establish that you are mine”, he said firmly. He must have finished scenting me, and had got up to open our drawer full of toys. “It is time I drove that message home.”

I perked up, hoping that meant what I thought it meant. I was surprised when I saw that he had got my harness out, and that there seemed more of it than I remembered.

“Huh?” I said incoherently.

He wrapped it around my back and tied it at the front, and I saw that there was an extra strap of leather extending down to a large metal ring. The bad feeling I had when I saw that was only confirmed when he clipped it open and closed it around my cock, removing the first ring. This second one was much looser, and I knew that a determined push would enable me to come.

“That is the idea”, he whispered in my ear. “I am going to scent you even more, Dean. Then we are going to put your clothes back on, and go for a walk in Regent's Park. You smelling of me, and with only that loose ring holding you back from coming. And I will be doing everything in my power to make you come!”

I whimpered in horror. That was torture!

+~+~+

I came twice during our hour out, to my utter mortification. Safe to say, I never let an attractive woman get even remotely close to me again. And when we returned to Baker Street, Cas rewarded me with one almighty blow-job, and in lieu of his apologies I accepted a hot shower and a second blow-job. It was a bit mean of him to leave my walking-stick outside the shower door afterwards, although to be fair I needed it.

Unfortunately, my problems arising from the actions of Mademoiselle Evadne Duguesclin were far from over.

+~+~+

It was two days later, and the night before had been a good night. A vert good night; Cas had gone to town on me to make up for his behaviour the day before, and I had (eventually) forgiven him. Though I had made him work me hard for that forgiveness. So even if I could not easily sit down, I felt great that morning.

I should have expected things to go wrong, and when Mr. Balthazar Novak paid a call, he proved to be the bearer of bad news.

“Only you, doctor!” he grumbled, realizing just in time that he had inadvertently picked up Cas' first coffee of the day (strongly inadvisable for those wishing to keep their limbs). “Now we have an international incident on our hands, just because you let yourself get kissed by the wrong girl!”

I sipped my own coffee, and wished I had something stronger in it. 

“What are you talking about?” I asked sourly. 

“That lady is the French ambassador's only daughter”, he snapped, “and the gentleman who was with her at the house is an attaché to the Spanish ambassador. Spain could be crucial if it enters the forthcoming war on Germany's side – and you've just upset them!”

“I could hardly push her away”, I muttered. 

“The young man, Señor Rodriguez, thinks she is seeing you”, Balthazar said.

“How, pray?” Cas asked calmly.

“Because that's what she told him when she got back”, he said. “From what I can gather, it is a lovers' tiff, but now he's sulking at the Spanish embassy and saying it is all the doc's fault!”

“How is it my fault?” I protested. “She kissed me, remember! And it was your damned book that caused all this!”

“You apparently did not try to stop her either kissing or kidnapping you”, Cas said dryly. “Balthazar, touch my bacon and I shall tell Mother about the three ladies from Lambeth.”

Our visitor's hand froze, and he looked uncertainly at Cas, who narrowed his eyes at him. His brother sat back and pouted.

“Pouting doesn't work for Dean, so it certainly doesn't work for you”, Cas said.”Luckily for him, he has certain other ways of winning me over.”

His brother scowled at him, and I bit back a chuckle. Just.

“I suppose that I shall have to play the knight-errant in this situation, and ride to the rescue”, Cas said wryly.

“Which makes the doc here the damsel in distress!” Balthazar grinned. 

He yelped as I threw a bread roll at him.

III

I was writing up some notes later that day when Cas came in with a telegram. He looked worried.

“What is it?” I asked.

“This is getting serious”, he said. “Señor Rodriguez has accused you of attempting to steal away his fiancée. He challenges you to a duel next Friday.”

I laughed, only to realize that he was deadly serious.

“What, pistols at dawn?” I asked, attempting to lighten the mood. 

“As the recipient of the challenge, you have the right to choose the weapons”, he said, unsmiling. “This is really serious, Dean. Señor Rodriguez is well thought of at the embassy, Balthazar tells me. And all this because you let that female kiss you and take you to lunch.”

“That was not my fault”, I grumbled. “She surprised me.”

“For the whole hour of lunch, presumably”, he said. “This needs looking into. I would suggest you restrict yourself to the house for now, and I will see what I can do.”

“He would not actually make me fight a duel?” I asked. I knew that, in any sort of physical encounter, I would be lucky to come out second. And alive.

“I rather fear that he would”, he said grimly. “I am going out. I will see you later.”

+~+~+

“I feel like a fool!” I grumbled.

It was nine days later, and we were at some private club which Cas had chosen for the duel. My opponent was due in any moment. I scratched at the fake leg cast that Peter Greenwood had placed on me last week – Cas had insisted it had to look worn, the bastard! - and sighed. Peter himself was there as a registered doctor, which Cas had assured me was allowed.

“They are here”, Cas said, looking out of the large window. “Let us do this.”

“It would be fine if I knew what we were going to do”, I grumbled. 

“If it is any consolation, you have made Balthazar's job very difficult”, he smiled. “The British government is up in arms over the case; they fear that should you win the duel, the Spanish will be offended. If you lose, the British government will be offended!”

“I'm hardly going to win anything like this”, I said pointedly.

Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a group of four people. I recognized Señor Rodriguez and Mademoiselle Duguesclin, as well as (unfortunately) Mr. Balthazar Novak. The elder of the other two I assumed from the resemblance (correctly as it turned out) to be Señor Rodriguez's father. He looked at me with lofty disapproval, and when he spoke to Cas, his English was flawless.

“Mr. Castiel Novak”, he said, bowing. “Thank you for your communications. As per your entrant's choice, my son has appointed his friend Señor Felipe Vasquez as his choice, since both men must of necessity choose champions.”

I gulped. The young alpha was toned, and looked as he could win a fight without breaking a sweat.

“A regrettable incident”, Cas smiled. “Without wishing to go into details, the doctor is in a relationship with someone who did not take kindly to his kissing a lady in that manner. His partner was, ahem, somewhat violent in their reaction. Fortunately the ribs were only bruised, not broken like the leg, and I have endeavoured to prevent them from taking any action against either your son or Mademoiselle Duguesclin. This way is so much more civilized, I am sure you would agree.”

“Indeed”, the old man said. “Your letter did not place any restrictions on my son's choice, and fortunately Señor Vasquez is one of the top pugilists in our country. I hope that is not a problem.”

Pugilists? As in boxers?

“In these difficult circumstances, one must have rules”, Cas agreed. “Shall we begin?”

“I do not see the doctor's champion?” the old man said, looking around the room.

“As the doctor's colleague, I shall be representing him”, Cas said calmly.

Mr. Balthazar Novak had moved surreptitiously round to stand behind where I was seated, and had it not been for his restraining hand on my shoulder, I would have yelled out an objection. Cas was forty-eight years old, probably around double the age of his alpha opponent, who was taking off his coat to reveal a lithe, tanned body. He looked far too confident. I swallowed, but Balthazar applied the slightest of pressures in his grip, and I bit back my objection. At least, until Cas' next words.

“The terms are these”, he said, donning his own long-coat and looking at the boxing-gloves like he had never seen one before. “At the first fall or knee to the ground, the bout is over. The loser must pay for a half-page advertisement in the Times newspaper, publicly apologizing to the winner. No further back than page five, and in tomorrow's edition.”

“That seems fair”, the old man said, clearly confident of victory. “Let us begin.”

+~+~+

I sat there, aghast. The bout had been going for five minutes, and I was totally mesmerized. 

At the start, Señor Vasquez had advanced confidently forwards, clearly thinking to end things as quickly as possible. Yet every time he threw a punch, Cas parried his blow, apparently without effort. The younger man's moves ran the gamut from confident through angry to desperate, as he increasingly wasted his energy trying to get a strike in. Cas looked almost bored as he conserved his own energy, his face an essay in disinterest. I held my breath, not daring to make a noise in case I distracted him, although he was so focussed I doubted that he would have heard me. Señor Rodriguez called encouragement to his friend during the brief pauses in the battle, but to no avail. Mademoiselle Duguesclin looked supremely bored by it all, bearing in mind she was the cause of this mess.

Then one particularly desperate strike caused Señor Vasquez to overbalance slightly, and totally against what had happened before, Cas suddenly shot forward a right hook which connected with his opponent's jaw with a sickening crunch. The man looked briefly surprised before he staggered and fell to the ground. Peter Greenwood immediately rushed over to him, followed closely by his friend. 

“I yield!” Señor Vasquez gasped from the floor. Cas stood over him, and for a moment I thought he was going to strike the man when he was down.

“Mr. Novak!” the older Señor Rodriguez called out. “Enough! You have the victory. We will do as you asked.”

Cas smiled, then slowly backed away from his opponent, before crossing to where I was sitting. He bowed to me, and I caught a half-smile creasing his mouth. I did not blush, but it was close.

“In victory, magnanimity”, he said. “If Señor Rodriguez will make a donation to the Baker Street Orphanage of the same amount that the advertisement would have cost, I am sure Doctor Winchester would be prepared to accept that.”

The two Spanish gentlemen both looked relieved when I nodded, although I noticed that Mademoiselle Duguesclin did not. And now she was eyeing up the prone Señor Vasquez rather thoughtfully. Whilst Señor Rodriguez helped Peter Greenwood tend to his defeated friend, I was grateful that the former's father escorted the brazen hussy from the room. We were well rid of her.

IV

“So”, I said once we had dropped off Balthazar and were headed back to Baker Street. “Boxing.”

He nodded. Clearly he did not intend to make things easy.

“You never said”, I said, feeling a little annoyed at being kept in the dark. “I knew that you were adept in some of the eastern fighting skills, but not pugilism.”

“Father insisted that all his sons learn both pugilism and fencing”, he said. “The first to defend ourselves if needed, and the second for the discipline it requires. The only one who failed to see them both through was Rafe, predictably enough.”

“Of course”, I said. “Poor Señor Vasquez. He must have thought someone twice his age would be a pushover.”

Cas looked pointedly at me.

“Probably almost as much as someone past fifty”, he quipped.

“Hey!”

+~+~+

I read the small article in disbelief, then read it again to make sure I was not dreaming. Cas, the bastard, had insisted that I continue to wear the cast for a few weeks 'just in case', and the damned thing itched like crazy. And it made sleeping difficult as well. Not that I had got much sleep; Cas had been even more possessive than usual since the case, and my body bore the marks of his constant attentions.

Proudly, I might add.

“Is something wrong?” Cas asked from where he was busy wrecking my filing system in his search for the record of a criminal whose name he had forgotten. 

“Listen to this”, I said. “Scandal at the French ambassador's house. Monsieur Louis Duguesclin, the French ambassador to Great Britain, has suffered the singular misfortune of having his only daughter, Evadne, elope, she having disappeared from the house last night.”

“That does not surprise me”, Cas said. “She did both kiss and kidnap you, remember?”

I scowled at him for that.

“That, I will admit, is not the surprising part”, I said. “Remember Señor Vasquez at the duel? It is he whom she has eloped with, not her fiancé, Señor Rodriguez.”

“Indeed”, he said, seemingly unperturbed. I looked across at him.

“This does not surprise you?” I asked.

“I am afraid that Mademoiselle Duguesclin rapidly struck me as a person who does not care how she gets what she wants”, he said. “Her misuse of your untimely visit to the house demonstrated that. I dare say that she is back in France now. Señor Vasquez's family have a house in Soissons, so she is doubtless headed there.”

We were interrupted at that moment by Mrs. Lindberg's announcement of a visitor. It turned out to be none other than Señor Rodriguez's father, who slumped heavily into the fireside chair.

“This is a disaster”, he said gloomily. “We may end up – how do you English say it? - with a shotgun wedding. Poor Martin is broken, and keeping to his room. Mr. Novak, I know it is probably foolish of me to expect your assistance after what has happened, but I need your help!”

Cas seemed to hesitate.

“I can help you a little”, he said, “mainly by telling you that all things are not what they may seem.”

Our visitor looked puzzled.

“I rather admired your son's friend Señor Vasquez”, Cas said, “which was why I spared him any serious injury in our little contretemps. He is truly a good friend to your son, and good men are hard to find in any walk of life. He understood all too well the fickle nature of Mademoiselle Duguesclin, and was prepared to put himself on the line to prove that. With your son's connivance, he wooed the lady and persuaded her to elope with him, thus proving just how faithless she really was. Although kissing certain middle-aged men on the doorstep and then subsequently kidnapping them for lunch was, in all fairness, perhaps something of a clue?”

I blushed fiercely. He was never going to let me forget this!

“I spoke with Señor Vasquez after the bout”, Cas said, “and he confided his fears to me. I helped him with some of the arrangements, one of which was that to avoid detection, he and the lady should cross separately to the Continent. In reality he placed her on the ferry, and is now on his way back to London where, I hope, he will still be welcome at your house.”

Our guest shook his head in bewilderment.”

“Of course he will be!” he said. “Poor Martin. Still, better he is detached from that terrible woman before things had gone any further.”

“Indeed”, Cas said. “And perhaps one day, he can find someone who loves him truly, rather than a fly-by-night character such as Mademoiselle Evadne Duguesclin.”

I blinked, as a sudden memory came back to me. Oh....

+~+~+

“He told you, didn't he?” I said, once our visitor was gone. “I remember now, how the boy rushed over to check his friend was all right afterwards.”

“Hardly a boy”, Cas smiled. “He is twenty-six years old, and actually a little older than Señor Vasquez, or Felipe, as he prefers to be called. My opponent has known him since they were boys together, but only recently did he discover that those feelings were more than returned. The union with Mademoiselle Duguesclin was very much a political match, and the subsequent outrage and challenge prompted mainly by his father. No, those two may have a chance of happiness together. We can but hope they are allowed to take it.”

+~+~+

It was with almost predictable bad timing that, the week after this case was concluded, Balthazar Novak told us that the government wished to honour Cas with a knighthood, not just for his help in avoiding a diplomatic mess over this case, but for other work both published and unpublished. It did not surprise me that he refused, stating that he had no time for baubles, and that he wished merely to get on with his last two years of work undisturbed.

And his comment about me making a good Lady were quite uncalled for! Even if I did get a new pair of silk panties out of him!

Well, they were black and red, ribbed and...... stop it!

+~+~+

In our next adventure, we travel to the Isle of Wight where there are lots and lots of bees, and someone gets stung....


	3. Case 110: The Third Man (1903)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously published as 'The Adventure of the Illustrious Client'.

I

Many and varied were the people who had sat in that famous fireside chair in Baker Street (which Cas had already arranged to purchase from Mrs. Lindberg and have moved to our new abode when we left). Tall or short, fat or thin, male or female, young or old, and rich or poor. We had seen them all. 

Or at least, that was what I had thought. But that cold January morning at the start of nineteen hundred and three, I was beginning to revise that particular opinion.  
   
The middle-aged and slightly plump omega wearing a yellow and black striped sweater with the words ‘Bee Happy!’ in black and yellow writing was, I had to admit… different. His name was Mr. Kay Tulling, and even with my somewhat limited (pathetic) detective skills, I had just about been able to guess even before he told us that he was a bee-keeper. And not just any bee-keeper, but one with an illustrious connection in an illustrious profession.  
   
“I have travelled up from the Isle of Wight today, sirs”, he said, “in the hope that you can help me with a most puzzling case.”  
   
“We will certainly hear your request”, Cas said, somehow not smiling at the little man who was rather too like a bee for comfort. He even somehow managed to elicit a slight buzz when he spoke. I was glad I was not in his direct line of sight, so I could hide my own smile more easily.  
   
“I am what is unofficially known as the Royal Bee-Keeper”, he said, clearly proud of that fact. “Officially I am merely another gardener to His Majesty, but my main duty is to my bees. I work at Osborne House which, as I am sure you are aware, was gifted to the nation by the new king only recently.”  
   
That was a tactful way of putting it, I thought. The new monarch's late lamented mother had spent the bulk of her time at the island house, effectively turning into a shrine for the husband who had so unfairly predeceased her by full four decades. Little wonder that their son, who had rarely seen eye to eye with either parent, had been so eager to rid himself of the place. I might add that at this time, his brush with death so soon after coming to the throne had increased his popularity somewhat.  
   
“His Majesty gifted the house to the nation on his Coronation Day”, the man said, “and ten of us were transferred from royal employment to the government to continue to maintain the house and gardens. However, the government now wants to create a naval college on part of the grounds, so five of us are required to move.”  
   
“They are sacking you?” I asked, surprised.  
   
“Good heavens, no!” he said with a laugh. “His Majesty made it quite clear that should anything like this happen, then he would take us back into his service and find a place for us somewhere. That was guaranteed!”  
   
“I see”, Cas said, which was more than I did. “So how may we be of service to you, sir?”

His next statement was.... interesting.  
   
“The bees have told me that someone is about to try to kill someone.”  
   
Only years of writing down things, only a few of which came to close that statement in utter strangeness, prevented me from coughing violently. Cas, of course, took it all in his stride.”  
   
“I presume they did not extend to mentioning the name of either killer or victim?” he asked, as if apiary-predicted deaths were quite common (they were not, by the way).  
   
“Not as such”, he said, “but the day before, we were told that we were to receive two important visitors about the establishment of the naval college. Sir Charles Despoine and Admiral Hardy.”  
   
I nodded, knowing both names. Sir Charles was the career politician, an alpha's alpha, committed more to the British Navy that any political party, an attitude that had earned him the respect of the general public but the distrust of his political ‘friends’. And Admiral Hardy was from the same stock (though not a descendant) of Nelson’s Hardy, an old sea-dog whose attitude was ‘shoot first, then shoot more later’. He was a beta, rare in such a high office, but he commanded at least as much respect (if not fear) as Sir Charles.  
   
“When are these two gentlemen coming?” Cas asked.  
   
“Next Monday, five days from now”, he said.  
   
“Then we must endeavour to be ready”, Cas said. “I have visited the nearby town of Cowes before during their regatta, and I am sure we can find somewhere suitable there to stay for a few days.”  
   
“You will help?” Mr. Tulling asked, clearly hopeful.  
   
“Of course”, Cas said. “Though a town-dweller, apiculture has always been an interest of mine, and I hope to have a set of hives when I retire to the country one day. I am at your – and of course, your bees’ - command.”  
   
+~+~+  
   
“You think our guest quite mad, don’t you?” Cas asked once our visitor had gone, with the reassurance that we would be down first thing the next day.  
   
I hesitated. If Cas was into bees and such, then it behooved me as his partner to be supportive, no matter how weird things got. I did not particularly look forward to having the stinging insects in the cottage's back garden, but if Cas had decided to keep pet elephants out there, I would have gone along with it. Instead I opted for a slight change of subject.  
   
“I am surprised that, if he is the Royal Bee-Keeper, he did not move to another palace when Osborne was given away”, I said.  
   
Clearly my efforts at avoiding trouble had met with their usual lack of success. He chuckled.  
   
“It is a good thing you did not say that in front of our visitor”, he smiled. “He might have had a fit! Bees move as and when it suits them, and more than one colony had been destroyed by attempts to relocate it. He may take a spare queen and some new bees to establish a second colony in time, but he will keep this one going as long as he can.”  
   
“And you think his bees really are psychic?” I asked, doubtfully,  
   
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”, he quoted.  
   
“Hmm”, I said. “Well, if I end up getting stung, it is going to be your fault!”

I remember that I had the vague feeling there was something else about the case that I should have noticed, but at the time, it eluded me.

II  
   
The following day we travelled to Waterloo Station and caught the London and South Western Railway express to Southampton, which reminded me of our case with the Morris Men five years back ('The Song Remains The Same'). From the station it was a brisk walk to the ferry across to Cowes, and a leisurely hour spent cruising down Southampton Water. I watched Cas leaning over the side of the boat, his hair even wilder than usual, and not for the first time thought how lucky I was.  
   
Cas’s statement that he would find ‘somewhere suitable’ for us to stay at during our time on the island turned out to be true and then some. The house was right on the waterfront in East Cowes (the town was divided by the river Medina, but fortunately we were on the Osborne House side), and positively palatial. Yet Cas looked strangely uneasy at coming here. I was sure it could not be the case, little of it as there yet was, so I asked him outright.  
   
“This was one of the places I stayed after Lawrence”, he said quietly. “After I saw you that time in Piccadilly, I knew I had to keep away from London, before my love for you led me to do something that might endanger you. I did a small case concerning the regatta for a friend of Balthazar’s, and he arranged for me to stay here for a few months.”

Then I realized. We had never had a case on the island before, yet he had spoken with the bee-keeper of past times there.  
   
“It brings back unhappy memories?” I asked.  
   
“Of course I was unhappy here”, he said bitterly. “I wanted to be with you; I wanted to tell you I was alive. I wanted you, Dean. But I could not put your life in danger just to ease my unhappiness. And in the end, I still nearly got you killed!”  
   
“But you saved me”, I said firmly, seeing how upset he was by the memories from this place. I took him by the hand and tugged him towards the stairs. “Come on”, I said.  
   
“What?” he asked.  
   
“I want us to make some good memories of this place, to replace the bad!” I grinned.

+~+~+

The one odd theme of the house was a series of mast beams, huge poles running the height of the house. There was one in the main bedroom, a huge thing nearly a foot thick between the foot of the bed and the side wall. And I was tied to it.

Cas, the sneaky bastard, must have been planning on something like this happening, because no sooner had he gotten me naked than he produced a long coil of rope from a cupboard. Even in my excited state, I could see this was not the usual coarse rope used on ships, but much smoother, though probably almost as strong. It certainly bound me to the post, and I strained ineffectually at the bonds. He stood a little in front of me, and grinned.

“They do say that anticipation is half the pleasure”, he grinned, as he slipped off his shoes and slowly removed his jacket. I could see from the sizable tent in his trousers that he was as aroused as I was, but at least he could do something about it.

“I'd rather have the other half!” I grumbled, as my cock strained against the cock-ring he had just happened to have had in his pocket, and slipped on me once I was helpless before him. Though as always, he had whispered that if I got too uncomfortable with this, I merely had to say the word and he would untie me. But I wanted to see how far he could push me, so I held off. For now, at least.

He finished removing his shirt and let it fall to the ground, and I groaned again. The bastard was wearing my harness, including the cock-ring which was holding him back from coming. He walked over to me and rubbed against my rope-bound form, and I could smell the heady mixture of leather and his alpha scent. Scent-marking me was one of Cas' little peccadilloes, and not one I really minded as it made me feel I belonged to him even more. Having applied himself liberally to me, he stood back and began to remove his trousers.

He was wearing no underpants! The man was trying to kill me! I groaned and strained at the ropes binding me; it was probably my fevered imagination, but they seemed to be giving just a little.

I had momentarily taken my mind off of the gorgeous sight in front of me, and when I looked back he was naked except for his socks, blue and yellow with bees on them. I would have laughed, but them he began to rub his hand along his cock, looking hungrily at me as he did so. I whined; I so wanted to be with him, but even if my arms had been free, he was just out of my reach. 

He jerked himself faster, then slowed down for some reason. I stared, then watched as he eased himself onto the bed and began to open himself up, groaning in anticipation of what was to come (him, the lucky bastard!). I felt the alpha in me rising to a fury that I could not reach what I so badly wanted, and growled angrily. He grinned, then sped up his hand movements, until he suddenly removed the ring and came all over his chest.

With an almighty heave I suddenly freed myself from the restraining ropes and almost flew across the room to where he was lying. I do not think I had ever entered Cas quite so fast, and it was a good thing he was as prepared as he was, for even then he grunted before slamming back down onto me. It became a vicious contest, two alphas fighting for dominance, until my befuddled haze cleared enough to remember something. I reached down and managed to unclip the cock-ring fastener that had been holding me back. 

For a moment my only thought was that this was why the French called this la petite mort, or the little death. I honestly feared that I had finally overdone it, and I would die inside my lover. Then my body managed to get its act together and I came violently, so hard that I nearly pushed myself out in the process. I hung onto Cas fervently, and he whispered quiet praises and thanks into my ear as I sank on top of him.

“We had better not do that again”, he said once my heart-rate had returned to normal. “It was a little too much for both of us.”

“I love you so much!” I panted, grasping him tightly to me as if I was afraid he might leave for some reason. He eased himself back down onto me and smiled gently.

“And I shall still remember this place”, he said. “Only now, it will always bring a smile.”

I smiled back at him and we both lay there, broken but elated.  
   
III  
   
Some time later when we were both once more capable of movement, we made it to lunch at a rather nice tavern in the town, before returning to the house where Mr. Tulling had arranged for a carriage to come for us from Osborne (an expense I felt a little guilty over, as it was barely a mile to the house). The man himself met us, and – oh my God, he was wearing another sweater almost identical to the first, except this one had ‘Bee Serious!’ on it instead. I do not know why was worse; the fact that he probably had a whole set of the things, or the envious look in Cas’ eyes which told me that, because I was such a wonderful partner, my next birthday present for him had already been decided. I sighed resignedly. The things people do for love!  
   
“Mr. Richard Goodman came down this morning”, he said glumly. “The admiral’s second-in-command or some such; he clearly thinks a good deal of himself. The bees were not impressed.”  
   
“I defer to their judgement”, Cas smiled. “Let us adjourn somewhere, and we can discuss what we are going to do.”  
   
He took us to his cottage, which was small but well-kept. I looked around, half-expecting a swarm of bees to descend without warning.  
   
“The hives are kept between the flower and the herb gardens”, Mr. Tulling explained, as we sat down on a small garden bench. “Those are the two best sources of food for the bees, so naturally it makes sense to have them close at hand. I have tried to persuade the head gardener to plant things more sensibly, but he persists in the belief that looks are more important that the convenience of the bees.”  
   
Most people would agree with him, I thought, though I had the sense not to say it. I could imagine Cas drawing up plans for our own cottage garden, so that his bees would not be inconvenienced. It would make him happy, and that was all that mattered to me.  
   
“Tell us about the planned naval college”, Cas said.  
   
“It is mainly being set up in the stable block”, he said, “so it should not impinge on the house too much. I would not normally be interested in such things, you understand, but anything that touches on the welfare of my bees takes priority.”  
   
“Of course”, Cas said gravely.  
   
“As I explained before, five of us are to be re-assigned”, he said. “It really is a case of pot luck as to where we may end up, thought an actual job is guaranteed, which in this day and age is most definitely something. They told us this some months ago, and asked first for people who wanted to move, saying that they would get priority, or at least an attempt to place them somewhere they wanted. Four men applied, so they had to choose one more. That was when the problems began.”  
   
“What sort of problems?” Cas asked.  
   
“The head groundsman is a rather hot-headed Scotsman, a Mr. Angus Colquhoun”, he said. “I had quite expected that, what with His Majesty’s Scottish properties, he would have been one of the volunteers for a move, but he has recently taken up with a local lady, so did not. He was not best pleased when it was his name selected from a hat.”  
   
“A random choice?” I asked. He nodded.  
   
“We all wrote our names on a piece of paper and put them in a hat, then the cook, Mrs. Barnett, drew one out. Oh, except for old Mr. Linus, but he’s almost blind and less than a year from retirement. It was agreed that he should be excluded.”  
   
“It all sounds very fair”, Cas said. “But Mr. Colquhoun is unhappy?”  
   
“He keeps muttering that the Royal Navy have no right to come here”, our host said. “Of course I seriously doubt he would do anything drastic – and yet the bees are sure that there will be a death. Or an attempt at murder.”  
   
“Both of which we must endeavour to prevent”, Cas said. “I am sure that Sir Charles and the Admiral have their own security details, but it would help to know a little more about them.”  
   
“I would suggest that you visit the Ryde Circle”, our host said with a smile. “Not only do those ladies knit the most marvellous sweaters, but they know everything about everyone in the Navy. I do not know how, but they do.”  
   
+~+~+  
   
It was almost certainly a coincidence that the Ryde Ladies’ Circle met in the back of a hardware shop, and that when Cas and I met the three principal members, they were seated around something that looked rather too much like a large cauldron. And that they were all wearing black.  
   
I shifted behind Cas anyway. Just to be sure.  
   
“That darling Kay says that you wish to know about a couple of old salts”, the tallest of the three said. “I am Esmeralda, by the way, Mrs. Sackville. These are my friends Mrs. Belton and Mrs. Worsley.”  


When shall we three meet again, I thought. Cas kissed the hands of each of the ladies, and sure enough, each of them simpered at him. Mrs. Sackville had to be at least sixty-five! I gripped my pencil tightly, but said nothing.  
   
“Sir Charles Despoine”, Mrs. Sackville said as we all sat down around the not-cauldron. “A most interesting man. If you cut him, he would probably bleed sea-water. Not, perhaps, a wise man.”  
   
“Why do you say that?” Cas asked.  
   
“”Ships are getting more and more expensive”, Mrs Worsley said, “and this government, like all governments, thinks it can buy more popularity elsewhere. Sir Charles has all the tact of a dreadnought at full steam.”  
   
“What is a dreadnought?” I asked, puzzled.  
   
“The new type of warship they are designing”, Mrs. Belton said airily. “It will be a great success.”  
   
My head was spinning.  
   
“The prime minister has enough problems on his plate without Sir Charles sounding off about the decline of the British Navy in relation to Germany”, Mrs. Sackville said. “But that is not to say they might murder him. This is England, not France.”

The disdain in her last word was palpable. I thought back to our own encounters with governments of various nationalities including our own, which had always proven themselves morally vacuous to some extent.  
   
“Admiral Hardy, on the other hand”, Mrs. Belton said, “is another matter entirely. I think many in the government are afraid that if they gave the new ships to him, he might start a war with someone just because the mood took him.”  
   
“You make him sound quite dangerous”, Cas said.  
   
“Danger takes many forms”, Mrs. Sackville said cryptically. “The Admiral himself is a decent enough fellow, though even good men are capable of doing evil.”  
   
She stared meaningfully at Cas, who nodded.  
   
“I see”, he said. “I must thank you ladies for your time in this matter. I hope we have not disturbed you too much.”  
   
“It has been a pleasure to meet you both”, Mrs. Sackville said. “We wish you well in your endeavours.”  
   
+~+~+  
   
“Macbeth!” I muttered once we were safely removed from the three ladies. “When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain?”  
   
“When the hurly-burly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won”, Cas followed on.  
   
“Let us hope this is one battle we win”, I said fervently. “England needs its navy.”  
   
We took a walk along the seafront in the little town before heading back to our carriage. We came back via the post office, and Cas went in to send some messages to London, which was good as it enabled me to double back and call on the ladies a second time. I had a commission for them.  
   
IV

The following day was Friday. Cas received a telegram at the house at breakfast, and sighed as he read it.

“Problems?” I asked.

“I telegraphed Balthazar about our two guests”, he said. “It seems that they have not been on the best of terms lately, and this visit is in effect a forced reconciliation mission. Some weeks ago the Admiral criticized Sir Charles privately over the government not doing enough for the Royal Navy, and of course it got out. He responded by publicly referring to 'little Nelsons and their sidekicks who always want to start unnecessary wars'. The prime minister himself insisted that they come down here together and sort their differences out.”

“It must have been something to draw in Mr. Balfour”, I said. The current Conservative prime minister was regarded by many, including myself, as little more than a safe pair of hands that was better than any of the alternatives on offer. That, and he was his predecessor Lord Salisbury's nephew, all but inheriting the post from his uncle. It was almost like old (Elizabethan) times!

“Mr. Balfour, like all politicians, thinks he can have all the benefits of the Royal Navy without actually spending any money on it”, Cas said. “Which reminds me, I wanted to ask you about bee-stings.”

I blinked, not seeing the connection there.

“What about them?” I asked.

“Can they be fatal?” he asked. “It might be just our luck that one of them stings one of our visitors on Monday.”

“Very rarely”, I said. “It is an ongoing area of study, like most medicine I suppose, but only a very few people are vulnerable. Besides, a bee will only sting if it feels endangered.”

“But a human reaction to them is normally to wave their arms about, which I would suppose upsets them”, Cas said. “Could you treat someone who had been stung and then reacted badly?”

“That would depend on the extent of their reaction”, I said. “You do not think that the bees are going to attempt a murder that they announced?”

“I think I would like to talk with our apicultural friend”, Cas said. “But there is no hurry. We shall see him on Monday, before our honoured guests arrive.”

+~+~+

We spent a pleasant weekend in the small town – no more ropes were used, but the beams were - and on Monday Mr. Tulling sent the carriage for us. Once we had arrived, Cas turned to him.

“I have heard it said that bees cannot sting a person without dying”, he said, “Is that true?”

“Only partly”, the man said. “Some bees have the sting as a growth of their body, so they literally have to rip themselves apart to escape. Others, like the species we have here, grow the sting separately. But neither will sting you unless they feel threatened; even if they can, growing back a sting takes a great deal of effort for the little creatures. Besides, they are busy gathering food right now, so they have other things on their minds.”

We talked amiably for about an hour until our three visitors arrived. The Admiral was much as I had expected, a bluff old sea-dog who, somewhat surprisingly I thought, was wearing a short-sleeved naval jumper with 'HMS Achilles' on it, presumably one of his ships. He was clearly on poor terms with Sir Charles, who could have stepped straight out of Whitehall with his perfect black suit and neatly-pressed white shirt. Only the gusty wind in off the Solent blowing everyone's hair into a mess (and Cas' into an even worse one!) ruffled his perfect appearance. The third person was presumably Mr. Richard Goodman, the Admiral's aide, a small dark-haired middle-aged beta who seemed permanently nervous. Then again, as he had probably been sat between those two all the way from London, that was understandable.

Mr. Angus Colquhoun, the head groundsman, came out to meet our guests, and seemed less than pleased to the addition of Cas and I to the group, though he said nothing. He was very much as I had imagined him, a red-headed alpha who could have modelled for the typical Celtic warrior. Mr. Tulling returned to his bees.

All went well until we were walking past the flower garden towards the wood and the beach. The Admiral paused to take a swig from his flask (I guessed the contents were rather stronger than water), and we continued on a few more steps before it happened. Mr, Goodman suddenly stepped forward and slapped his superior on the arm. The Admiral looked at him in surprise.

“Why'd you do that, Dick?” he asked, before his eyes suddenly glazed over and he slumped to the floor. 

“A bee”, Mr. Goodman snapped. “The Admiral is allergic! I told him not to come here!”

He spun round to face Sir Charles.

“This is all your fault!” he said angrily. “You and your stupid argument!”

“This is not the time nor the place for recriminations”, Cas said firmly. “We need to get this man to the house. Unless, doctor, you think it better to treat him here?”

I had been looking at the Admiral's arm for the bee-sting, but it must have fallen out, which was a good thing. I was dimly aware that Mr. Tulling had emerged from the flower-garden and handed something to Cas, but was focussed totally on my prone patient.

V

Who promptly rose to his feet and winced. Then he looked across at Cas.

“Thank you”, he said gravely.

“What the....?”

Cas had moved round to behind where Sir Charles and Mr. Goodman were standing. The aide was staring at him in shock, for my friend had without warning dragged his hands round behind his back and handcuffed him.

“What is the meaning of this?” he protested.

“Attempted murder”, Cas said. “A most unique one. Murder by fake bee-sting is one of the more unconventional methods I have come across.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The Admiral here has been aware for some time that there has been a spy in his department”, he said. “Not a foreign one, but one placed there by his own government. He quickly reasoned that that man was Mr, Goodman here, and set out to entrap him.”

“Lies!” the aide spat out.

“I have to congratulate you, Sir Charles, on your role as well”, Cas said. “It was essential that Mr. Goodman believe that there was a bitter disagreement between the two of you, so that you could be forced into a meeting to 'smooth things over'. You arranged for that meeting to be here, near some bee-hives. Then the Admiral, when informed by his aide of the plan, casually mentioned that he Is strongly allergic to bee-stings, thus offering him a chance to remove a source of irritation for the government.”

Cas turned to the aide.

“You poisoned the Admiral's flask with something designed to cause the same reaction as a bee-sting”, he said. “Once you saw him drinking from it, you had to make sure that he would be 'stung' soon after. The ring you wear on your finger has a sharp spike on the inside, and in the confusion afterwards it was easy for you to throw it over the wall into the flower-garden. Unfortunately for you, your plans were known beforehand. I had Mr. Tulling there ready to receive it, and he has just handed it back to me.”

The aide groaned, and Mr. Colquhoun made short work of dragging him back to the house, where two policemen were waiting.

+~+~+

“And that was why the Admiral was wearing a short-sleeved top, then?” I asked.

We were back in our palatial Cowes home. Cas nodded.

“I telegraphed him when I knew his aide would be targeting him”, he said. “He told me of his plan, and I offered to help.”

“How did you know it was him?” I asked.

“The ladies in Ryde told us”, he said, as if it were obvious.

“What?”

He tilted his head at me.

“'Even good men are capable of doing evil', remember?” he said. “Good men. A Goodman.”

I groaned.

“That reminds me”, he said, pointing to a well-wrapped brown paper package next to my bag. “The ladies asked you to visit them yesterday before we left the island. Any particular reason?”

“Oh”, I said. “Yes.”

He quirked an eyebrow at me. I handed the package over to him.

“It seemed only fair”, I muttered. “I can never top what you gave me for your birthday last September, but..... well, I saw how you looked at it. And the ladies worked flat out to get it done in time.”

He looked curiously at the package, as if he could somehow see what was inside without opening it. Then he very carefully unwrapped it, and extracted the contents. It was a large yellow and black sweater.

“It is lovely”, he smiled. “Thank you.”

“It has writing on it, too”, I said, still feeling embarrassed. I did not do mushy moments, but for Cas, I would force myself. He unfolded the sweater and held it up against his chest. The inscription on the front was 'Bee Mine!'. 

He looked at me and smiled.

“Always and forever, Dean”, he said quietly. “Always and forever.”

+~+~+

Postscript: In fairness to our prime minister at the time, I feel compelled to add that it later emerged that Mr. Goodman's actions were undertaken not at his behest, but that of a senior Cabinet member. There was some pressure on me to not publish this case, but when it was made clear that I was going to do so, the member in question was moved to a lesser post during a sudden and unannounced government reshuffle. He left the government some time later, and most wisely did not attempt to return.

+~+~+

In our next adventure, a little knowledge would turn out to be not just dangerous, but deadly.....


	4. Case 111: Reading Is Fundamental (1903)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously unpublished; mentioned elsewhere as ‘the matter involving the Duke of Greyminster’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the modern reader, the term ‘forest’ in the Middle Ages was defined differently to today's meaning of just a large wood. Then it was a protected wild area comprising different habitats that included trees, but was mostly open ground. From that dark year of 1066 onwards, the rights of free men to access these areas, for fuel and the grazing of their animals, had been steadily eroded, and brutal punishments imposed for any who were caught. Worse, the definition of just what was a royal forest was greatly extended, a process known as afforestation. The Charter of the Forest, which features in this story, was some 'small print' stuck on the end of the much more famous Magna Carta', and very much set things to rights, thanks to the efforts of that great nobleman William Marshall.  
> 

I  
   
Being the partner (in both senses) of the greatest detective ever to walk the earth meant that I got to see all sorts of strange and exotic locations. Admittedly I often got to see them whilst being barely able to sit down, but I certainly travelled much more than another other doctor of my ilk would have done. On the other hand, Cas preferred very much to stay in London if at all possible, and our one venture abroad had been at least partially forced by circumstance, ending with both of us deeply glad to return to our dear rooms in Baker Street. But I certainly got to see many parts of the island of Britain which I would otherwise have missed, which was why we were currently in rural Gloucestershire. Sort of.  
   
Following the creation of the County of London back in ‘Eighty-Eight and other boundary changes, many of which were I suppose necessary, I began to note where our cases outside the capital occurred. By the time of this case we (Cas) had solved cases in each of England’s traditional counties, including Monmouthshire. The county map of our fair country has of course evolved over the centuries, and two ancient counties, Winchcombeshire and Hexhamshire, had been lost to it over time. It was one of those statistical curiosities that this and our subsequent case took us to each of those counties in turn, first to the Welsh March and then to the Scottish one.  
   
The changing maps of history are also reflected in the title of this story. Greyminster, which lies about eight miles east of Cheltenham, was once the largest town in the area, and must have been a major reason for the ephemeral existence during Anglo-Saxon times of the county of Winchcombeshire, Winchcombe itself lying some miles to the north. Unfortunately as things turned out, Greyminster's wealth was always dependent on the abbey that gave it its name, and when that duly fell victim to the monstrous King Henry the Eighth, the town declined to little more than a village, people moving away to Cheltenham and Gloucester. By the start of our century, what had been the tenth-largest town in England at the time of the Domesday Book (the 1080's) had been reduced to little more than a country village. When the railway was built between Banbury and Cheltenham some years before the time of this story, it did not even merit inclusion on it, the nearest station being our destination of Notgrove, some two miles to the south.  
   
We had come to this part of the Welsh March at the urgent request of Theobald, nineteenth Duke of Greyminster, whose telegram had arrived at Baker Street late the previous night. His title had been created in fifteen hundred and three, ironically not long before the loss of its abbey, and his ancestors' support for parliament in what had been a predominantly Royalist area in the English Civil War not long after had seen Greyminster Abbey (confusingly the name of the great house built from the ruins of the old abbey) besieged for six months at one point, before it was relieved during the events surrounding the Siege of Gloucester in sixteen hundred and forty-three. They had of course lost some lands at the Restoration, but were still a powerful force, both locally and nationally. Duke Theobald sat in the House of Lords as a cross-bencher, and was renowned for speaking his mind most forcibly. Which was a little strange, because Cas told me before leaving London that he had said almost nothing as to the reasons for our visit.  
   
“The only hint he dropped was that it may have something to do with the Greyminster Library, which he is currently establishing in London”, Cas said, frowning as our carriage bounced along a dusty country lane. It was April, but showers had been considerably lacking as of late, and the countryside looked parched. 

“I have read about that”, I said. “It sounds a most honourable venture, if an expensive one.”

“The family are reported to have done particularly well in their investments in South African gold mines”, Cas said, “so one supposes that with the Boer War over, that source of income is now guaranteed. Do those social pages that you never read in the newspaper tell us anything more?”

I scowled at him, and he gave me an injured look in return. 

“There was speculation that the Duke is setting up the library partly because he has fallen out with his eldest son, an alpha called Geoffrey de Grey”, I said, still sulking a little at his snipe at my reading habits. “He has one other son, a beta called Philip. Also one daughter Alice, and his mother, the dowager Duchess Deirdre, lives in the Dower House on the estate.”  
   
He looked set to remark on my reading habits again, but I shot him a warning look and he just sniggered instead. Which was worse, actually.  
   
+~+~+  
   
Greyminster Abbey was a fine old building, and I could see the Elizabethan structure in it even though I knew it had been partly destroyed by a fire early in the last century. The then fourteenth duke, St. John (not an ancestor of Duke Theobald) had been something of a rake, and had lost much of the lands at cards, so his death in that fire was providential. There had been some suspicion that his brother and successor Duke St. George (Theobald’s great-grandfather) may have been involved in dispatching his elder brother into the next world, but as he proceeded to repair most of the damage done to the estate in his forty-year tenure of the dukedom, people tended not to comment on such minor details.

Perhaps I did read those social pages just a little.

Duke Theobald was a fine old alpha of about sixty years of age, clearly not in the best of health as he greeted us from a bath-chair, wrapped heavily in blankets. His attendant nurse gave us both a mighty scowl when he dismissed her before talking to us, and I wondered if she might stoop to listening in at the door. She looked the sort.  
   
“Thank you for coming to my poor request, gentleman”, he said.  
   
“You were somewhat vague in that request, sir”, Cas said a little reprovingly. “Was there a reason for that?”  
   
“Indeed there was”, the duke said heavily. “I have lost something of great value, and I am threatened with humiliation unless I can find it.”  
   
+~+~+  
   
“I am sure I do not have to tell you about Magna Carta”, the duke began, once tea had been served (how Cas managed to get the cream from that doughnut onto his nose, God alone knew!). “That famous document now exists in four copies, held in various places around our fair country. You may not know that, when it was originally drawn up, it was known simply as ‘The Charter’. Once the invasion of the French Prince Louis had defeated, in 1217 the barons re-issued the document along with a smaller charter, curbing royal abuse of forest laws.”

“It is a copy of that second charter, the Charter of the Forest, or ‘Parva Carta’ as the newspapers called it, that was discovered one year ago in the vaults of a house in Buckingham whose owner had just died”, the duke went on. “It is the one re-issued eight years after the original, with some minor changing in the wording. By a stroke of great good fortune, the owner of that house had been an uncle of mine through marriage, and his will left everything including the precious item to me. Naturally my first thought was to add it to my planned collection in London.”  
   
“I may speculate that your sons offered their opinions as to that course of action?” Cas asked politely.  
   
The duke nodded.  
   
“Philip was all for housing it in the library as what he termed 'a crowd-puller', but Geoffrey, of course, wanted to sell it and use the money to pay for a complete refurbishment of the Abbey”, he said. “Like most so-called great landowners, I have largely moved out of land as it is currently a poor investment. The house does need work, but nothing that I cannot fund through my current income sources.”

“And the charter went and disappeared?” Cas asked.

“That is not the worst of it!” the duke groaned. “The Greyminster Library opens in London at the end of next week, and the Princess of Wales is cutting the ribbon. The press will have a field-day when they discover that the prize exhibit is an empty glass case.”

II

“When did the charter disappear?” Cas asked.

“Between seven and nine last night”, the duke said. “The last time that I definitely had it was just before dinner at seven o'clock; I had been examining it when the gong sounded. After dinner we adjourned for coffee, and at just before nine I went for one final look. You can imagine my horror to find the document gone.”

Cas pressed his long fingers together. 

“Who was in the house at the time?” he asked.

“Myself, my two sons, my daughter Alice and her fiancé, Mr. Callow”, the duke said. “I have to say that I do not really approve of their relationship, especially as he is some nine years her senior, but I suppose that is the way of the world nowadays, and they have been together for nearly a year now. The staff were all down in the kitchens, except the maids who brought up the food. My steward, Henderson, is retiring, and they were having a small celebration.”

“That fact may be important”, Cas said. “Please tell me more about Miss de Grey and Mr. Callow.”

“I married late in life”, the duke said, “and was fortunate enough to be blessed with three children before, sadly, my wife died trying to provide me with a fourth child. The baby died too, and I was left to raise my three children on my own, although I was fortunate to have my mother's help.”

I thought of the dowager Duchess Deirdre, a most formidable woman just turned eighty, yet still very active on the social scene whenever the duke came to London. I had met her the one time – yes, she had simpered at Cas! - and she had all but sniggered at my defensive growl, whispering 'lucky devil!' to me before sailing off to terrorize someone else. I had the distinct feeling that she might, just might tend to be a strict surrogate parent. Like the ocean might, just might tend to be wet.

“Alice is nineteen, and quite determined when it comes to getting her own way”, the duke continued. “She showed absolutely no interest in the charter whatsoever. Her fiancé, however, has a keen interest in history, as he is an archaeologist. He is originally from Norway, and it may be the Viking in him that makes me not quite trust him. Although he authenticated the charter for me, I took the precaution of obtaining a second opinion as well.”

“And then we have your two sons”, Cas said. “Tell me a little about them, if you please.”

“Geoffrey is twenty-two, and sad to say, something of a rake”, the duke said with a sigh. “Rather too many of the young generation seem to think that the world owes them a living these days, and the idea of them actually working for an honest crust is some form of alien concept. He was most unhappy when, last year, I insisted that he spend six months working on the estate, including doing some farm labour.”

“Insisted?” I asked. The duke nodded.

“The title is hereditary”, he explained, “but the actual estate itself only has to go to someone of the blood lineage. If I were so inclined, I could leave it to any one of my children, or split it between them. I would in the normal order of things be disinclined to disinherit my eldest son, but I would do so for the good of the estate.”

I thought to myself that his offspring would privately hate him having that hold over them all, but said nothing.

“Philip is twenty-one”, the duke went on. “He is a beta, something his elder brother never fails to remind him of; I know some estates can pass only through alpha lineages, but ours is not one of them. He is a quiet, sound young man.”

“You say that you spent time before dinner looking at the charter”, Cas said. “Does that not run the risk of damaging it?”

“I was unclear over that”, the duke admitted. “I have had the thing transcribed and translated into Modern English, and it is that copy which I keep with it that I was examining, it being kept right next to the original.”

“I must ask you a somewhat personal question now”, Cas said. “You mentioned Mr. Callow, whom your daughter is seeing. Are either of your sons currently seeing anyone?”

The duke looked surprised at the question, but answered readily enough.

“It may be cruel to say it, but I rather think that my eldest son is waiting for me to quit this earthly realm, so he can have the estate to counter his innate lack of personal appeal”, he said bluntly. “Philip is currently dating Lord Winchcombe's youngest, an omega called Brock of all things! A good boy, despite that.”

Cas nodded, and thought for some little time.

“Was the charter insured?” he asked at last.

“That is another thing”, the duke sighed. “It is of course irreplaceable, but I did insure it with the March Insurance Company for ten thousand pounds. Naturally they will be far from happy when they receive the telegram I sent them yesterday, informing them of its disappearance. Can you help me at all?”

“I am not sure”, Cas said thoughtfully. “I am concerned that, even as we speak, the charter may have already been damaged.”

“Damaged?” the duke asked, clearly shocked. “Why?”

“Not deliberately”, Cas clarified. “But remember, we are dealing with a piece of parchment that is approaching seven centuries old. It would not take well to being folded even once in its now fragile state, which one presumes would have to occur before it could be removed undetected from the house.”

“But do you know who has it?” the duke asked.

“Oh yes.”

We both stared at him in surprise.

“That part is fairly obvious”, Cas said calmly. “However, retrieving the charter – that will be a little more difficult.”

+~+~+

Cas wanted to take a look at the glass case that had housed the charter, so we went off to the study. The case had a lock on it, but unfortunately the duke had not used that as the house was locked up at the time, and he had thought it safe. Cas examined the empty case, but said nothing, though I caught a very slight twitch of the lips which told me had either seen or deduced something. What that was, of course, he did not tell me. He did however send out a boy with a telegram he wanted sent to his brother Balthazar in London.

III

Greyminster Abbey was a long building with two great wings either side, and fortunately all the family rooms were in one wing whilst the guest bedrooms were in the other. My room adjoined Cas', and they both had four-poster beds in, as well as some very dark furniture. I sighed as I opened my bag, checking that my gun was fully loaded and....

Holy shit! 

Cas must have got at my bag before we had left Baker Street that morning, because folded neatly underneath my revolver was my favourite pair of black lace panties, the ones that Cas had got me for my birthday a few months back. They were a size larger than my old ones – all those Baker Street breakfasts took their toll, despite the frequent 'workouts' I got from my mate – and they even had a little blue bow on them. I gulped, but dutifully undressed and put them on. I was just running my finger round the waistband when......

“Hullo, Dean!”

The Voice. I gulped, and turned slowly round. The sheer ridiculousness of a fifty-one-year-old man standing in a bedroom wearing lace panties probably should have bothered me, but I there was probably not enough blood being supplied to my brain to care just at that moment. Well, that and the fact that Cas was wearing that damned sexy waistcoat of his, and fully clothed except for the formidable erection that he was palming, whilst looking at me like a starving dog eyeing up a juicy steak.

I do not remember how, but somehow my limbs managed the complicated task of getting my body onto the bed and sprawled out ready for him. The feral look in his eyes both terrified and aroused me, and I was already leaking as he clambered up between my legs.

“It is appropriate that this case involves Magna Carta”, he growled, beginning to finger me open with his usual efficiency. “That was a fairly minor document, which history endowed with far greater meaning that any of its authors had intended, merely because it was the first time that the power of a ruling monarch had been successfully challenged.”

That wasn't the only thing being challenged, I thought acidly. He was brushing lightly against my prostate, making me writhe in anticipation.

“Then, of course, we have that other historical inaccuracy”, he said, slowly widening me and making me arch my back like an omega in heat. “Droit de seigneur. Literally the right of the lord, in this case to take the virginity of any of his serf's daughters. We have no proof that such a thing existed, yet it is in all the history books.”

His fingers withdrew, and I almost cried with relief when I felt him push aside my panties and his cock start nuzzling my entrance. Then, to my eternal chagrin, he stopped with his cock head barely inside me.

“I wonder if I should take your virginity, Dean”, he mused. “After all, it was nearly thirty years ago that I came back to my rooms in Bargate, and an alpha visiting my room-mate ravished me most thoroughly. Perhaps in return I should make you wait a while.....”

I had nothing like Cas' flexibility at times like this, but desperation gave me strength. I already had my hands on his hips, and I forcibly impaled myself onto his cock, much to his evident surprise. The bastard then just grinned, forcing me to do all the work as I dragged him inside me, panting with the exertion. Never mind droit de seigneur, it was going to be a case of la mort d'amour if this went on much longer. I needed him to finish what he had started, and quick!

Only when he was fully seated inside me did Cas finally take control, pushing me back even further and finding the perfect angle to assault my poor prostate. I writhed in sheer delirium, and he snarled in return, both of us racing to orgasm. In fact we got there at one and the same time, my overwhelmed senses having to cope with Cas coming inside of me and one of the best orgasms my poor broken body had ever experienced. Finally I let out a satisfied grunt, as Cas wiped us both off and then snuggled in behind me. I was almost asleep when he spoke.

“My turn tomorrow morning”, he said dryly. “Goodnight, Dean.”

I stared into the darkness for nearly a whole minute.

“That was mean!” I hissed.

All I got was a dark chuckle, and an arm that gripped me even tighter.

+~+~+

The next day passed uneventfully enough, apart from my wake-up call that resulted in me having to come downstairs quite gingerly (why did my bedroom have to be on the second floor, damn it?). The duke asked me if I had experienced a rough night, but I denied it. Even if that was all too true!

A telegram came for Cas mid-morning, and he seemed pleased enough with the contents, though he did not share them with me. Even when I pouted!

Mr. Callow left for London after lunch, and Geoffrey de Grey took him to the station before going on to Gloucester for the afternoon. I was a little uneasy about them both leaving the house, but Cas seemed unworried, so I supposed it was all right. 

It was about an hour after the two men had driven off that we had a visitor. It was a local police constable, depressingly young (they all were, nowadays). To my surprise, when he came into the main room where we were both sat, he greeted Cas.

“Constable Berkeley”, Cas smiled. “Welcome. Did you get it?”

“Yes, sir”, the constable smiled. Had to wait a bit at the station for them to box it up for me, though. It looked like showers, and I didn't want to risk it getting wet.”

“Risk what getting wet?” I asked, confused. Duke Theobald, his daughter and his youngest son had joined us, and looked equally nonplussed, which made me feel a little better.

“The box that is currently being brought into the Abbey contains a most precious copy of a certain medieval charter”, Cas said. “Your suspicions were quite correct, Your Grace. Mr. Callow had decided to relieve you of your historical artifact, sell it, and make a new life for himself abroad. I am sorry to say, Miss de Grey, that the fact he only started paying court to you just days after the charter came into your father's possession was not a coincidence.”

Miss de Grey bit back a sob, and her brother moved swiftly to comfort her.

“Well!” the duke said heavily. “The rat!”

“Indeed”, Cas said. “Doubtless he will have some time in a prison cell to consider the foolishness of his actions. The doctor and I must, regretfully, leave for London soon, but I would be grateful if, your men having safely unpacked the charter, we could both see the document that has caused all this?”

“Of course”, the duke said. “Philip, kindly take Alice to her room, please.”

The younger de Grey led his sister away, pausing only to look curiously back at Cas. I wondered why.

IV

Fortunately we had at least an hour to examine the charter before we had to leave to make the last train to connect at Kingham Junction for London. It was virtually incomprehensible, I thought, not helped by the fact that in those far-off days they for some reason wrote legal matters in short form. Cas, of course, could read it perfectly. Show-off!

We had been there some little time when the door opened, and Philip de Grey entered.

“I thought that I had better come”, he said, looking somewhat shame-faced for some reason.

“It is well that you so decided”, Cas said, quite sharply I thought. “What you did was shameful, sir.”

“But necessary”, the young man insisted.

“What is going on?” I asked, puzzled. Cas turned to me.

“There was rather more to Mr. Callow that met the eye”, he explained. “Both brothers suspected that his attentions towards their sister may have been opportune, though neither suspected theft as the eventual aim. However, Mr. Philip here did some research, and discovered that as well as Mr. Callow, there was also a Mrs. Callow.”

“What?” I exclaimed, turning to the young beta. “Why did you not say?”

“Can you imagine my sister's embarrassment?” the young man muttered, flushing bright red. “To be wooed by a married man, then dumped? I only found that out the other week, which was when I worked out what his real game must be.”

“Since he could obviously not marry Miss Alice legally, his target was more likely theft”, Cas agreed. “Mr. Philip laid his plans. He had an almost perfect copy of the charter made, and found an opportunity to effect a substitution. It was just days before he knew that his prey was visiting, and it was easy to slip upstairs and place the fake charter in his bag.”

“Wait a minute”, I said. “That means that Mr. Callow has been falsely arrested!”

“True”, Cas said, “but you are forgetting that any time he serves in jail will be more than deserved, bearing in mind his intentions and the foul way he used poor Miss Alice de Grey.”

I could not but agree. 

“You said the charter was almost perfect”, Philip de Grey put in. “What is wrong with it?”

“Whoever copied it out clearly made one copy onto notes, then copied from those notes, on fake old parchment”, Cas explained. “There were two things that gave it away, both very small. First, the effect of folding over many years is exceptionally hard to reproduce accurately. And second, the copier absent-mindedly used a letter 'J' at one point. That did not become common in the English language until several centuries later, let alone the fact that the same word was correctly twice written with an 'I' elsewhere in the text. Close reading is fundamental, you see.”

+~+~+

Mr. Ralph Callow served four years for the theft he never committed, and when finished had the belated good manners to remove himself from English soil. Ten years later, Philip de Grey, then married with three sons, was badly injured in a road traffic accident that claimed the life of his father. His elder brother Geoffrey became the next duke, but did not live long to enjoy his title, enrolling in the Great War that started the following year and dying in the trenches before the year was out. Duke Philip duly inherited, and soon emulated his late father as a prominent speaker in the House of Lords. His sister never married, and still lives on the estate along with dowager Duchess Deirdre, now over a hundred years old. Apparently Heaven has decided it is not yet quite ready for her, for which I do not blame them in the least!

+~+~+

From one lost county to another, our next adventure takes us to the border with Scotland, and a former tenant of Baker Street who shows a side we had not even begun to suspect.....


	5. Case 112: Bloodlust (1903)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously unpublished, mentioned elsewhere as ‘the case of Mr. Fairdale Hobbs’.

I  
   
This case comes to memory because of the unusual dual setting, starting some few yards away right inside our own dear 221B Baker Street, and ending on the Scottish border not far from my own birthplace, Belford in Northumberland. And in both those settings bestrode the diminutive figure of Mr. Fairdale Hobbs who, along with the other key character in this story, has some time past emigrated to the wilds of the Canadian west. Though thanks to the pervasiveness of the modern telegraph system, I was able to reach him with a message asking if I could publish this case in this extended canon, and to my surprise he said yes. I advise the readers to brace themselves for this particular adventure, the revelation of which shocked me mightily!  
   
As I have may have mentioned elsewhere, 221B was divided into a number of living areas, one for the house owners (The Lindbergs and the Singers), and one each for their five sets of tenants. The rooms used by the owners were located throughout the house and connected by a winding central staircase, which was why we rarely had any interaction with our co-tenants, except for the occupant of Number Four. Indeed, a previous tenant had purchased a three-month use of that room solely because they wanted Cas to take their case, and were sure that living in the same house would guarantee his acceptance. I will not embarrass the socially elevated Lady who found to her cost that her arrogant attitude had incurred a lot of expense but no help whatsoever!

From around the start of that year, the occupant of Number Four had been one Mr. Fairdale Hobbs, rather unusually an un-mated omega living alone. Mr. Hobbs was very much what the newspapers tend to ungrammatically call ‘an omega’s omega; tolerably good-looking, but short of stature and physically unimpressive. He also had that most essential of attributes for someone in that particular room, namely very selective hearing.  
   
The reason for Mr. Hobbs' departure from Baker Street had been an unexpected inheritance (of course we heard all the details from our landlady Mrs. Lindberg, who like her mother knew far too much of everyone else’s business). Mr. Hobbs' sudden wealth came from an unmarried omega second cousin, of whom he had barely even been aware of until the man decided to quit this mortal realm on St. David's Day and leave his entire estate to his fellow omega. To wit, a lead mine, two farms, a forest, a ruined tower and a house in the Allen Valley, all in Northumberland but some distance from my own home town of Belford.  
   
I should explain at the start of this story that my home county had at least four very distinct cultures within its borders. As well as my brother Sammy’s Berwick-on-Tweed and Newcastle-upon-Tyne at either end of its long coast, there was also a division between the bulk of the rural areas in the east and north, and the south-western reaches, what had at one time been a county in its own right called Hexhamshire. This ‘lost county’ had enjoyed an independent existence for some five centuries before being folded back into Northumberland in the sixteenth century. It contained a similar Borderer culture to my home town area, but there were also definite differences, as I would shortly discover.  
   
+~+~+  
   
Mr. Fairdale Hobbs departed our lives, such as he was ever in them, in the second week in March – I believe that there was some relative who contested his right to inherit as an omega - and at the time I barely noticed his going, what with our trips first to the Isle of Wight and then rural Gloucestershire. We would doubtless not have even thought of our vanished neighbour, had it not been for the arrival in 221B of Mrs. Gwendolyn MacLeish. She was announced by Mrs. Lindberg one fine May morning, an unfortunate time to call on us as Cas had used the paddle the night before, and I needed both a rubber ring and a cushion before I could sit down. Even moving my head to acknowledge our visitor caused a pain to run the length of my body, and my eyes to water.

Mrs. MacLeish was a frail-looking lady in her mid-forties, rather badly-dressed and clearly overawed at just being here. It very rapidly became clear that she was probably too timorous to inform us as to the reason for her visit. Fortunately I had Cas, extractor of information and far too many simpering looks from females across the realm.

“It must be a grave business that causes you to call on us and break such a long journey”, he said politely.

Mrs. MacLeish looked even more alarmed, and Cas hastened to reassure her.

“Your ticket is a ladies' compartment through return, issued by the North Eastern Railway Company", he explained, "which means that you began your journey in the north-east. It has been clipped three times, which means that you had a slow train to connect with the London express, after which first the North Eastern main line guard and then the Great Northern guard punched your ticket. You also bear in your hand one of their transitory luggage slips, which means that you have sent your bags on. Judging from the time, you must have caught the one of the first trains of the day to King's Cross, and your lack of travel ware indicates you plan to reach your destination tonight, which the luggage slip denotes requires a further train journey. Yet in the middle of such a great trek, you have chosen to call on us. May we know why?”

I could never resist those baby blue eyes, and Mrs. MacLeish lasted less than five seconds before bursting into speech.

“I'm bound from my home in Hexham, in Northumberland, to my sister's place in Kent”, she said quickly. “I arranged everything months ago, but the past few weeks.... sirs, I am scared!”

“And what, pray, has scared you?” Cas asked patiently. She took a deep breath.

“As well as my younger sister Cassandra, I have an omega brother Cassius, her twin, who emigrated to New Zealand some years back”, she said. “Most of his family went with him, but the youngest, Max – Mr. Maximilian Long, sorry – chose to stay here. We do not see each other very often, as he is steward for a considerable estate that, until recently, was the property of a widower omega called Monseigneur Christopher Carlton. Quite an achievement for Max, who is barely twenty-one, but he worked for six years under a Mr. Armstrong who then retired, and Mr. Carlton chose to keep him on.”

“Did you know this Mr. Carlton?” Cas asked. She nodded.

“A good man; his alpha died a few years back, just days after Mr. Armstrong went”, she said, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. “There was some sort of legal to-do when someone challenged his right to inherit. Fortunately Jim – Cassie's husband – is a lawyer, and he helped straighten things out.”

That was regrettable, I thought crossly. Omegas today had far more rights than a century before, when they had been as much the property of their alpha as any of their goods and chattels. But there were still some people who though an omega's place was to be collared, bred and discarded when no longer needed. The Enlightenment took a long time to enlighten some, it seemed.

“My own husband died last year”, Mrs. MacLeish went on, “and it was arranged that I move into my sister's house. Jim is quite happy with this; it's a big house and I can easily pay my way. However, as this might have been one of my last times in my home county, I decided to call on Max before I left. I, um, did not let him know that I was coming.”

She had already gone so red that I was tempted to reach for my medical bag. And praying that I would not need it, as moving across the room to treat her would be utter agony.

“Max has a small cottage right down by the river”, she stuttered, and I braced myself for whatever revelation was to come. “I called at the house first, of course, and they directed me there. There was no sign of him, so I let myself in with my key, thinking I might have to leave him a note. Then I heard singing – well, I suppose Max would call it singing; he is practically tone-deaf, poor dear – and I realized that he was out the back. I went to the window, and I saw.... I saw.....”

II

She ground to a halt. 

“You saw what?” Cas prompted. She took another deep breath.

“He was bathing in the river!” she shuddered.

Oh. She saw her alpha brother naked. But then why drag us into her Edwardian sensibilities?

“Not that”, she said, still shocked by what she had had to say. “No, sirs, you see, Max had his back to me, and right across his back was all welts and marks. As if someone had beaten him up. It was horrible!”

“What did you do?” Cas asked.

“I backed out the room and went back out the front door, then knocked very loudly and called his name”, she said. “I gave him some time before I started around the side of the house, but he got to the door before I was far, and he was wearing a dressing-gown. Which I thought was odd.”

“Possibly better than no dressing-gown?” I suggested. They both glared at me.

“What I meant”, Mrs. MacLeish said primly, “is that it was a very high-quality gown. Silk, I think. Max is paid well, but I did not think he could afford something like that. And given the state of his back.... it was possibly the only thing he could have worn.”

“Possibly it was a gift”, Cas suggested. “Here.”

He quickly poured her a whisky, which she downed in one impressively quick shot.

“This has been a great shock to you”, he said gently, “and you did the right thing by coming to us. We are inclined to investigate this case for you as a matter of urgency, and if you leave us your new address, we shall communicate any findings to you as soon as we have them. One more question, if you please. You mentioned that your brother has a new master, after the passing of Monseigneur Carlton. Do you happen to know his name?”

“I do, sirs”, she said, digging a card out of her copious handbag. “He lived in London before he inherited, a shock to him I'm sure as he never knew Mr. Carlton, so I was told. He is also an omega, and his name is Mr. Fairdale Hobbs.”

Fortunately she was not looking at me as she spoke (all right, she was already simpering at Cas!), and the blue-eyed genius was a master of controlling his own expressions, so she did not realize that her brother's new master was in fact our former near-neighbour in this very house. Another simper and she was gone, Cas grinning at my exasperation. I would have swatted at him, but I still did not want to move unless absolutely necessary.

“A nice long train ride”, he beamed happily. “I do hope I can find a way to keep myself entertained.”

I whimpered pitifully. If hopefully.

+~+~+

Our progress north was delayed slightly the following day, as Cas had a small matter in York to sort out for the town council, which was so trivial that he solved it between our mid-afternoon arrival and tea. We spent that evening in the town, which enabled me to take in the truly magnificent cathedral. Of course it showed my own frankly pathetic detective skills that it was only the next day when I realized that Cas had taken the case just to that end, which he admitted when challenged. That was the wonderful thing about him; every day we were together, I found that impossibly, I could love him even more.

I may or may not have shown my thanks by giving him a very enthusiastic blow-job once we were on the train to Newcastle, which he may or may not have enjoyed mightily. I felt that that was not bad for someone who was, as Mrs. Lindberg had remarked recently, ‘forty-eleven’!  
   
Changing at the great city on the Tyne, we transferred to a slower cross-country train heading towards Carlisle, and alighted at Haydon Bridge Station, where we took an even slower train, eventually alighting on what seemed like the middle of nowhere, but which proclaimed itself 'Staward Halt'. I observed that the station seemed unusually large for such a seemingly empty locality.  
   
“The railway runs down the East Allen valley from here”, Cas explained, “and this is the rail-head for the villages along the West Allen. The porter at Haydon Bridge said that they planned to make this the junction for a line down that valley as well, but the plans came to naught.”  
   
That explained the oddity of a moderately busy goods yard in the middle of the Northumberland countryside. 

We left the station and crossed the road to the unimaginatively-named Staward House, the house of our former co-tenant Mr. Hobbs. At least even my limited detective skills could successfully find it, as the station house apart, there was not another dwelling within sight except for a distant farmhouse to the east. We knocked at the door and waited to be admitted, and after only a short time, the door opened to reveal.....

Ye Gods!

III

My relationship with Cas meant that I had seen probably more sights than an English country doctor of my still definitely middling years should have done, and I had long thought that there were few things left that could truly surprise me. But the.... Thing that came through that door, and then actually stood up before us.... well. This man had to be at least seven foot tall, and not the willowy build one so often gets with tall people. No, this was solid muscle, as if the Good Lord had decided to experiment with what happened when you added twenty per cent extra mass, all muscle, to your average alpha male. He had strawberry-blond hair, and wore both a kilt and a friendly enough expression; on reflection the latter was probably just as well.

I was silently glad that I was standing behind Cas, coward that I was. My friend gave me a look that said he knew quite well what I was feeling, then presented his card to the giant human.

“Yes?” it rumbled. 

“Mr. Castiel Novak, and Doctor Dean Winchester”, Cas said. “Mr. Fairdale Hobbs was a tenant at the house we lodge at in Baker Street. Is it possible to speak briefly with him?”

The Thing looked at us warily, as if considering where it might be convenient to bury our bodies. Then it nodded slowly.

“I believe the master may be in”, it rumbled. “If you gentlemen would be so kind as to wait a moment, I will see if he can receive you.”

It turned and led the way to a small but well-kept waiting room, taking our coats and placing them on a coat-rack in a small cloakroom next door. As I was watching him, I caught sight of a huge leather collar, which had to at least have been for a Great Dane. I gulped. 

“Calm down, Dean.”

The fact he said those words in my ear, having slid silently across the room, made me jump a clear foot into the air and yelp like a girl. Once I had stopped my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest, I turned and glared at him.

Calm down?” I echoed. “With someone as big as that? Hell, if Mr. Hobbs takes exception to our visit, his henchman could probably bury our bodies without breaking a sweat!”

“I doubt that”, Cas smiled easily. “Especially as he is the subject of our visit.”

“What?”

“You did not notice that he has the same shaped nose and hair colour as Mrs MacLeish?” Cas said. “That is her nephew Max, of whom she is so concerned.”

That was a 'Max'? Wow! His parents had had foresight!

+~+~+

Mr. Fairdale Hobbs was much as I remembered him from the few times we had met going in and out of Baker Street; indeed, if anything he seemed even smaller. That, however, was probably due to the human mountain who remained next to him, looking at us suspiciously. I looked around for the dog but did not see it, though ominously there was a dog-basket in the corner that was so huge, I could have fitted in it myself.

Cas would protect me. I was sure of that. Well, fairly sure.

“You wished to see me, Mr. Novak?” Mr. Hobbs asked politely. He could not have lived in 221B for any length of time without being fully aware of exactly what sort of relationship Cas and I had, so he must have known that an omega being alone in a room with these particular alphas was quite safe. Yet he made no move to dismiss the man-mountain next to him.

Cas seemed to think for a moment, then smiled.

“Actually the doctor and I happened to have a case in Haydon Bridge”, he lied, “and I remembered that you lived just a few miles away. As we had some spare time, I thought we would pay a quick call to see how you were settling in, and probably catch the very next train back.”

Mr. Hobbs looked at him suspiciously.

“And what was this case?” he inquired. Cas looked shocked.

“I am sure that you would not expect me to betray client confidentiality”, Cas said airily. “Save to say that it was easily dealt with, and I plan to spend a couple of days sightseeing with the doctor. Take in Hadrian's Wall and all that, you know.”

Our host was clearly still suspicious, as was I by now, but Cas did not seem inclined to linger. Indeed, this was about to become one of our shortest cases ever. Cas rose quickly to his feet.

“We do not wish to dog your footsteps any longer”, he said with a smile. “I have had enough with following leads of late, and collaring criminals all over the place. Some fresh Northumberland air will whip some colour into the good doctor's cheeks. We shall not trouble either of you again, Mr. Hobbs. We shall see ourselves out.”

And with that he strode quickly from the room. I hurried after him, keeping an eye out for the dog, but I made it safely to the door, only falling over my feet the once.

+~+~+

“I don't get it”, I said plaintively. We were in a small tavern in the unimaginatively if accurately named hamlet of Wall, and whilst I looked forward to walking amongst the Roman ruins the following day, I still could make neither head nor tail of Cas' actions in this case.

The great man chuckled, and heaved himself on top of me in the bed, eliciting a warning creak from the giant structure, into which even Max could have possibly fitted. Cas was clearly in a mood for slow, lazy sex tonight, which was great as I was still exhausted from the past few days. And it felt so good to have him gently tweaking my nipples, rousing me with an almost casual slowness towards a happy destination I was in no hurry to reach.

“I would draw your attention to a number of things in this 'case'”, he rumbled. “If you piece them all together, the solution is obvious. A little unusual, perhaps, and I doubt you will either want or be able to publish this case any time soon, but still obvious.”

“What things?” I sighed. “Ohhhhh!”

Cas was gently rubbing our erect cocks together, not enough to arouse me further but enough to make my whole body tingle.

“First, the welts and marks which we know are on Mr. Maximilian Long's very broad back”, Cas said, continuing his ministrations. “Second, the very large dog-collar. Third, the equally impressive dog-basket. And fourth, the fact that an alpha chooses to remain in service to an omega, which is unusual enough, but is also paid sufficiently to afford the very highest quality silk shirts and dressing-gowns. The shirt he was wearing had to be specially made by a shop in Edinburgh; I saw the label. Let alone the fact that the kilt was also of a much softer material than the norm.”

“I still don't get it”, I complained.

He stopped rubbing himself against me, and quirked an eyebrow at me.

“Perhaps I should just hold off until you do?” he suggested playfully.

“No!” I said, unnaturally loudly in the empty room. “No, I can get it. Does the dog have anything to do with it?”

He gave my now tender cock one more rub before answering.

“Tell me, Dean”, he said quietly, “did you notice any dog hair on the furniture?”

I thought back.

“No”, I said, “but then I wasn't looking for it. And some dogs don't shed.”

“Very few”, Cas said. “I will give you a clue that should be enough to show you the light. Mr. Fairdale Hobbs does not own a dog.”

I frowned, now totally confused.

“But why then would he have a collar?” I asked. “I mean, that thing was big enough to fit a......”

IV

My whole body froze. Suddenly I had got it. Cas grinned from above me.

“We have a winner!” he teased.

“Mr. Hobbs and Max?” I gasped. 

“Some alphas like to be dominated by their partners”, Cas said airily. “You know the sort; the stronger or smarter they are, the more release there is in allowing someone else to take complete charge of him. I would have thought that being my man would have shown you that, Dean.”

My mind whirred.

“The dog-basket?” I asked.

“For Max when he misbehaves”, Cas grinned. “I quite like the idea.”

I prodded him for that, and he retaliated by suddenly stepping up his rubbing, tweaking my nipples at the same time. I groaned. 

“They are both consenting adults”, Cas said as he worked me to a finish, “and the fact that Mr. Hobbs is prepared to buy the very best quality silk clothes so that his alpha does not have to suffer after a beating shows how much he cares. I am sure that, like us, they have limits beyond which neither will go if the other says the word.”

“But Mr. Hobbs!” I said plaintively. “I mean, Max must be two foot taller than him!”

I had been so distracted what with one thing and another than I had not even noticed Cas fingering me slowly open – until he suddenly pushed into me, and my eyes rolled back as I came at once, letting out a strangled moan. He followed me soon after, then collapsed lazily on top of me, still inside me. Normally one or other of us would have cleaned up at this point, but the events of the day had exhausted me, and I slipped easily into sleep.

+~+~+

Cas must have woken up soon after and cleaned me up, for I was spotless when I woke the following morning. I thought of the odd couple living life their own particular way only a few miles west of here, and smiled to myself. Provided it was with a consenting adult and did not frighten the horses, what harm was there really?

Cas and I spent two more days in the area, catching the early train on the third day to Newcastle and thence to London. There we found a telegram from Mr. Hobbs waiting for us, with the simple message 'Thank You'.

+~+~+

Someone up there must have at least not disapproved of Mr. Hobbs' life choices, because some nine years later he and Max decided to start a new life in Canada. They booked a passage out there on board the 'SS Oceanic', and declined the shipping company's offer of a free transfer to their new and faster liner that was making its maiden voyage that year. Thus they missed the fateful first – and last – voyage of the 'RMS Titanic'.....

+~+~+

Next time, we meet the fourth person in our lives who had the ability to see the future – except that this time, he was rather more active in using it.....


	6. Case 113: You Can’t Handle The Truth (1903)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously unpublished, mentioned elsewhere as ‘the case of the venomous lizard, or gila’.

I

I thought long and hard before including this adventure in the expanded canon, for strictly speaking, it was was not really a case at all. Yet it involved an important change for someone dear to me, as well as for my beloved Cas. And after all the false alarms in a whole number of cases, it showed that perhaps the supernatural does indeed exist, and that it need not always be feared. The truth, they say, is out there somewhere - but in this case it decided to appear to us.  
   
+~+~+  
   
We had not seen Miss Charlotta Bradbury since her move to Northamptonshire and Cas’ solving of the Red Circle case about a year and a half back, so it was with pleasure that I heard Mrs. Lindberg announce her name one fine July morning. As usual, she all but threw herself at Cas, and even though I knew there was nothing between them, I instinctively growled. She smirked knowingly at me, but mercifully said nothing.  
   
“I’m on the scrounge again”, she said, collapsing into the fireside chair in an untidy heap. “Running Middleton’s from the middle of nowhere is a lot harder than I’d hoped, and some people persist in viewing me as some sort of free information agency, as if they could just press a button and get whatever they want to find out for no charge. A pity I cannot have installed some sort of telephone system, where people can press a button or pull a lever, pay me, and just get what they want.”  
   
“Technology does tend to raise expectations”, Cas said with a smile. “How may we be of service today, Miss Bradbury?”  
   
She reached for a cream cake (she almost matched our two police friends in the freakish ability to detect baking days at 221B!) and proceeded to get jam all down the front of her dress. Honestly, she was as much of a grub as the blue-eyed genius sat opposite me. Wiping it off, she grinned and began.  
   
“Half the battle with Middleton’s isn’t so much getting the information, it’s not getting it”, she said. “We get so many reports in from so many people, it’s an effort sorting the wheat from the chaff. Fortunately my staff are great, and I always pay them a bonus if they spot anything out of the ordinary.”  
   
“It may be something and nothing, but I recently had cause to get some facts for a man living in a place called Aldeburgh, on the Suffolk coast. Didn’t go there myself, but one of my agents had to, so as to get the information on a certain gentleman whose activities were immoral if not illegal. I'll certainly never look at a feather duster the same away again! It was all sorted out, but whilst he was there my man naturally picked up lots of other local gossip as well. Most of it was what you would expect, but one thing struck me as odd, and I don’t like odd.”  
   
“Go on”, Cas said.  
   
“One of the villagers was worried that, last year, a local girl had gone off to join some sort of commune at Dunwich, a few miles up the coast”, she said. “I had been looking at moving to the area myself; ever since they decided to build that new army thing at Redford, my little slice of peace and quiet is damned noisy! Though at least Redford has its own halt now.”  
   
“You do not wish to investigate the matter yourself?” I asked curiously. Our visitor shook her head.  
   
“I just gather information and sell it”, she said. “I leave the investigating to geniuses – genii? - like Blue-Eyes here. But I am due to go up there at the end of next week to finish the Aldeburgh case off, so if it’s not all sorted by then, you can tell me how things are going.”  
   
+~+~+  
   
“This 'Faerie Dell' place has been going for some time”, I told Cas the following day. I had gone to the library to do some research on the place for him, as he had sprained his ankle for reasons that….. well, I am not going into all the details, save to say it involved a certain piece of equipment left on the floor by a sex-crazed alpha over fifty, that his mate did not spot in time and promptly fell over. It had quite put a damper on our morning’s activities, although bandaging up a patient’s leg had never been so much fun, and had certainly never taken quite so long.  
   
Those blue eyes smouldered at me, and I made sure to keep the table between me and my mercifully incapacitated patient.  
   
“Down, boy!” I ordered. “You need complete rest for at least forty-eight hours.”  
   
“I don’t mind lying on my back”, he smirked, “provided I can have you on top of me.”  
   
I waved an admonitory finger at him.  
   
“Not whilst you’re recovering”, I told him playfully. “Though if you’re good, once you’re fully recovered then we might play doctor and patient again.”  
   
His eyes twinkled, but he subsided back into full repose, so I went and sat opposite him. The man was insatiable!"  
   


Fortunately!

“The place was one of those so-called Century Cults”, I went on. “There were a whole lot of them about three years ago, all convinced that the end of the nineteenth century was to be the end of the world. Which with the mess the world is in right now, well, I suppose, it is understandable. Almost makes me glad I’m going to miss the same thing when years start beginning with a two; that will be so many times worse. Of course most of these cults disappeared when 1901 rolled around bang on schedule, but the Faerie Dell didn’t. It’s a small thing, but it’s still going.”  
   
“The library had information on it, then?” Cas asked. “One would assume that a small semi-religious grouping in rural Suffolk would barely interest them much.”  
   
“The 'local girl' who went there was a daughter of one of the principal families in the area”, I said, “so it made the national papers. Miss Felicity Wyndham-Connaught; her father is Lord Harringay, who sits in the House of Lords and speaks often there. He is known as Old Windy, because his speeches do go on. Anyway, there was a huge fuss when the daughter slipped away from home without telling the parents, and they went to law to get her back. Very unwillingly, it was said; they shuttled her off to Europe somewhere to keep her from the clutches of the cult leader. Luxembourg or some such place, it said.”  
   
“Who is the leader of this 'cult'?” Cas asked.  
   
“He is known to his followers as just ‘Gila’, which is the name of a venomous lizard found in the south-western United States of America”, I said. “His real name, as far as the newspapers could ascertain, is Mr. Emmanuel Allen, from Oklahoma, I think. An omega and divorced, but then, he is American. Quite what he is doing on the Suffolk coast is a mystery. It cannot be the money, for he apparently refuses all donations from his ‘ladies’; indeed, it is hard to see how the place pays for itself, especially if the nosy London papers cannot work it out. All the ladies – oh, and there is an omega there as well, apparently - take names starting with the letter ‘G’ on arrival. None are compelled to stay, according to interviews done with some of them by the local police force after the disappearance, but none wish to leave.”  
   
“Very strange”, Cas said thoughtfully. “This man must be quite something.”  
   
Neither of us had any idea at the time just how true that statement was.  
   
+~+~+  
   
‘Faerie Dell’ (honestly!) was an open establishment, which basically meant that anyone could turn up at any time. Indeed, the problem with the Wyndham-Connaught girl had not so much been locating her as persuading her to leave; the social pages of the Times (which I may have occasionally glanced at on the odd occasion, and a certain blue-eyed genius could stop sniggering right this minute!) stated that she had broken off all communication with her parents since they had sent her abroad. At the time of the story, the papers had made much play of Mr. Allen’s nationality, calling him ‘the venomous lizard from across the great water”, but this had elicited an angry response from the American ambassador in London, and the appellation was soon shortened. I myself was unsure about the whole thing; Mr. Allen did not seem to be gaining very much from his commune, and clearly no-one was being kept there against their will. Unless there was some means of persuading them that had not been made clear as yet. Drugs, perhaps, but the police had found nothing but content people there. And the one girl who had been removed very clearly still liked the place.  
   
Cas’ ankle had taken some time to recover, and it was not until the middle of the following week that I judged him ready for travel. That was Wednesday, which we mostly spent on other things (horizontal other things, but vertical and even upside-down at one point), so it was not until Thursday that we finally decamped to Liverpool Street Station, for a Great Eastern Railway express to Ipswich. From that town we took a slower train that chuntered unhurriedly along the line through some pleasant countryside, and we finally alighted at Darsham Station, the nearest available one for Dunwich.  
   
I was sure that Cas knew it, but I was quite looking forward to seeing Dunwich, or what remained of it, anyway. Like many people, I knew that it was once been a great port, as large as London by some accounts, but a run of terrible storms in the late thirteenth century had torn away huge parts of the city, and its remaining citizens had not unnaturally lost confidence in it, drifting away to other, safer (and drier) towns. All that remained now was a tiny village with but a few buildings, reminders of its once great past. A strange choice of place for anyone to live in, let alone someone who had travelled halfway round the world.  
   
We arrived at ‘Faerie Dell’, and sent up our cards and a request to speak with Mr. Allen. A reply came back almost immediately; he was currently occupied (oddly it did not say what with), but was glad we had called, and definitely wished to talk with us. If we could but wait in his room for half an hour, he would be down. The lady who talked with us was somewhat oddly dressed, I thought, in long flowing blue and green robes that would have been more suited to the climate of India than East Suffolk, but I supposed it was each to their own.  
   
After what seemed like an interminable wait, the lady reappeared and announced Mr. Allen. A tallish dark-haired man walked into the room, and for once even Cas was surprised. I, on the other hand, was speechless.  
   
It was…. well, it was Cas!  
   
II  
   
“Greetings Doctor Winchester, Mr. Novak”, our host said courteously. “I have been expecting you both. I hope your ankle is better, Mr. Novak. Doctor Winchester, we meet again.”

I stared at him in confusion. I would surely have remembered meeting him before.

“Brightlingsea railway station?" he prompted. “And a certain Mr. Alistair Campbell who, I believe, is not that far away from there. At least, what is left of him by this time.”

“You are psychic”, Cas said calmly. Well, certainly a lot more calmly that I felt. Although this Mr. Allen had an almost preternatural calm about his, so different from the latent energy of my mate, they could have been twin brothers. Surely not…..  
   
“Not what you are thinking, doctor, but close”, the man said with a smile. “I have ordered a light lunch, as you will not have had time to eat properly on the train – bacon sandwiches, of course, plus coffee – and then we will talk.”  
   
+~+~+  
   
“What I have to say will, I am afraid, initially rouse some unpleasant memories for you, Castiel”, our host began. “It concerns a certain Mr. James – Jimmy - Novak.”  
   
I could feel Cas tense, and I instinctively reached out to reassure him. Mr. Allen smiled slightly, but did not remark on my move.  
   
“For reasons that I will shortly attempt to explain, I am fully cognizant of what happened between your mother, Rebecca Novak, and an American businessman called Mr. Demetrius Scavenger”, he said calmly. “My condolences on the loss of Jimmy. He was a good man.”  
   
“You knew him?” I blurted out. He looked at me flatly.  
   
“Of course”, he said. “I did wonder, I must say, why you, Castiel, did not pursue that particular line of inquiry yourself.”  
   
“Because I did not wish to know what I might find”, Cas said shortly.  
   
“What line of inquiry?” I asked, all at sea.  
   
“Though one should not generally speak ill of the dead”, Mr. Allen said, looking thoughtful, “the late Mr. Demetrius Scavenger was not a good man. He made a habit of sleeping with the wives of other men; indeed, to him it was to all intents and purposes a sport. One of the ladies with whom he ‘dallied’ was a Mrs. Mirabelle Allen, my mother. In her case the results were somewhat different to those of your own, Castiel; my father Roland blew his brains out when he realized he had been cuckolded, and I was raised by my mother and her own parents.”  
   
I stared in shock. Ye Gods, this was Cas’ brother! Well, half-brother. Step-brother? Something!  
   
“As I am sure you have already detected, I am an omega”, the man said. “Omegas in the Allen family sometimes have a particular version of what is commonly called The Sight, which means that I am able to foretell the future. And to answer the doctor’s next question, yes, I do sometimes bet on the horses. That is how this place pays for itself.”  
   
I blushed. I had been thinking exactly that.  
   
“I foresaw the fire in which my father would die”, Mr. Allen said heavily, “and feeling what I did against the man, I did nothing to warn him. One should try not to alter history in any way, shape or form – but of course, when one had a gift such as this, one is always tempted. And I was able to use it to a limited extent to monitor you, Castiel, as well as to help save the life of your friend a few years back. I must say that your own life has been a series of spectacular ups and downs thus far, and I am greatly relieved to see that you finally seem to be heading for calmer waters.”

He had an almost hypnotic voice; either that or else I really wanted to believe him.

“What about Miss Wyndham-Connaught?” I asked. “Surely you failed there?”

He chuckled.

“On the contrary”, he said. “I succeeded. I knew that there was a son of a family friend who would prove almost a perfect match for her, but that they were unlikely ever to meet, as the man's father had regrettably moved to Belgium. However, when the willful daughter runs away from home and fights all efforts to get her to return, well, what else is a loving father to do but to move her as far away as possible from the source of all the trouble? Flick sent me a telegram only the other week, and she is over the moon after her father accepted her, ahem, 'new' choice of partner. She and Franz will do well together, provided they move to Switzerland as I advised them to.”

“And now you wished to see me”, Cas said thoughtfully. “Any particular reason, brother?”

Mr. Allen smiled.

“If I told you everything, you might well become complacent”, he said cheerily. “No, Castiel. You still have just over a year before you and your alpha here can sail off into the sunset together, and enjoy the long and happy retirement that you have so richly earnt. I do have something to tell you, but I cannot reveal it for another twenty-four hours. If you can find a place to stay overnight, then come back here tomorrow afternoon with your friend Miss Bradbury, and we can finalize what needs finalizing. Gilda?”

The middle-aged lady who had remained quietly in the background (and was still wearing the weird coloured bed-sheet!) crossed to the door. Clearly it was time for us to leave. Cas looked at his brother-not-brother, then smiled and left, with me close behind.

III

“I still find that creepy”, I complained, as we sat on the beach at Dunwich that evening. This was one of the things I liked to do when we were in the country go out and look at the star-filled skies, something that was becoming increasingly rare in a London that seemed to grow bigger and dirtier each passing day. It was almost dark now and we had the beach to ourselves, a passing shower having driven everyone else off to the village. 

Cas yawned, but said nothing.

“Do you think your... Mr. Allen can foresee the future?” I wondered, gazing out onto a suspiciously calm North Sea. 

Cas stood up, and I heard rather than saw him clambering up onto the sandbank behind us, presumably to get a better view.

“If you had his power, would you not do exactly as he has done?” he asked.

“What, bet on the horses?”

“Dean!”

“Sorry.”

“It must be both a blessing and a curse, in some ways”, Cas mused.

“How can knowing the winner of the 3.15 at Ascot at three o'clock be a curse?” I asked reasonably.

“Because if there is someone you love, you may not always be able to help them”, Cas said seriously. “Think about it. Mr. Allen had to stand and let poor Jimmy not just die, but get blown to smithereens, even though he knew that he was going to die anyway. And all those times he saw me suffering, he could do nothing about it.”

“When were you suffering?” I asked, puzzled and more than a little alarmed.

“When I did not have you”, he said simply. 

I smiled as I heard him descend the sandbank. Then he came around to stand in front of me, and I stopped smiling very quickly. Somehow, without my hearing a thing, he had got himself completely undressed.

“Dean”, he growled, “let's have sex on the beach!”

I stared at him in shock. True, it was dark and there was no-one about or likely to be about, but the sandy shore stretched on endlessly north and south, and we would have no warning if anyone came into view. Or through the gated gap in the sandbank.

Cas grinned at me, and lowered himself in front of me, beginning to pluck at my clothes. I had never been one for exhibitionism, but suddenly I was very aroused, and keen to join the party. Especially when Cas stopped pawing at me and began to saunter casually towards the sea. 

Somehow I managed to get myself undressed, and hastened after him. He was standing waist-deep in the waves, and I thought instinctively of that painting with Venus rising from the foamy waves – except that my Cas was way more beautiful than any goddess of love. I ran into the sea to join him, then ran out again a whole lost faster, biting my lip to avoid screaming at the cold.

“Come on in, Dean”, he grinned. “The water's lovely!”

I scowled at him, gritted my teeth and made my second, rather more careful entrance to Neptune's kingdom. The temperature was cold enough for me to expect to see icebergs floating by any minute, but I had forgotten what a human heater my friend was, and as soon as I was plastered against that gorgeous body, I quickly began to warm up. Indeed, I was so intent on touching him at as many points as possible that I did not even notice where his hand was going, until it wrapped around both our hardening cocks and began to jerk us both off. I instinctively leant back in my ecstasy, which proved to be a mistake as my top half immediately all but froze, and I hugged Cas hard to regain the lost warmth. What with that and the cold trying to break in between us, my orgasm took me completely by surprise, and I sagged against him when it was done, totally spent.

He proved how strong that slender frame was by all but carrying me onto the beach and laying me out, then folding himself on to of me before rolling us both over several times on the soft sands. I was covered by the time he was done, and I groaned. That would mean another dip in the sea to clean myself off.....

That would mean another dip in the sea to clean myself off.....

I would have run down, but my legs were annoyingly uncooperative. So I just lay there on top of him, smiling down at my beautiful, beautiful mate.

+~+~+

Miss Bradbury had come up by the first train of the day to Aldeburgh, completed her business there, and then hired a cab to take her on to Dunwich just after lunch. Like me, she was suspicious of Mr. Allen, and the three of us returned to 'Faerie Dell' somewhat apprehensively.

Mr. Allen wanted a private word with his half-brother first, which I could understand, so Miss Bradbury and I sat in the waiting-room and... well, waited. The same lady from last time – Gilda, if I recalled – was the one who ushered Cas in, and she was still wearing that frankly ridiculous bed-sheet, doing some paperwork or other at a desk in the corner. Miss Bradbury seemed unusually quiet, I recall; normally she was buzzing with energy each time we met. I was considering remarking on the fact, until something in the newspaper caught my eye.

“Oh my God!” I burst out.

“What is it?” Miss Bradbury asked, concerned. 

“Listen to this”, I said. “There was drama in Baker Street, London, last night, when that thoroughfare was witness to a gunfight more more fitting to a Wild West boulevard. Only by the miraculous workings of Providence did the only victim turn out to be the man who had caused it all, a Mr. Julian Ritchings.”

“Who is he?” Miss Bradbury asked.

“Cas got him put away back in 'Ninety-Six; he was part of the Gorton Street Gang that robbed the West Central Bank”, I told her. “Two of them swung for killing the guards, but his lawyer, a smarmy little oik, managed to persuade the judge that his client had been forced into it, and he only got seven years. He must have been after Cas!”

“Except thanks to Mr. Allen, neither of you was there”, she pointed out. 

I nodded and read on. It had been the most amazing good fortune (though perhaps not for Mr. Ritchings) that he had been stopped outside number 221B by a group of policemen who had just raided a house nearby, and had confiscated a whole set of loaded guns. Of course the London bobby was, quite rightly, not armed, but in this case the criminal had been exceptionally – and fatally - unlucky. 

Or had he, I wondered.

IV

Soon after, we were shown in to Mr. Allen. He greeted us, and bade us sit down.

“I see from the newspaper that the doctor is carrying that you have read the news from London”, he said with an affable smile. 

I wondered how he had managed to have us here on exactly the right date, which would have meant that he knew what had caused Cas' leg injury, which meant..... no, not going there! Then I remembered. He had asked after that injury yesterday. Damnation!

And Miss Bradbury's smirk at my evident discomfiture was totally uncalled for!

“I am not some producer of these 'films', monitoring every movement of your lives, doctor”, he smiled. “If I were, I might have filmed certain events on a certain beach last night. Miss Bradbury?”

I blushed even deeper. Miss Bradbury had seemed distracted again, but snapped to attention.

“Yes?” she said. 

“Two things”, Mr. Allen said. “First, I do advise you to get the house you looked at this morning very thoroughly checked over. The fact that the current owner is not only going abroad but is also asking more than ten per cent below the going rate – well, I am sure that you are quite probably suspicious already. You might want to not be the person who looks in the cellar, by the way.”

She nodded.

“And second”, Mr. Allen continued, “East Suffolk really is a most pleasant area in which to settle, and the government is unlikely to want to build any army camps this close to a vulnerable coastline. If you are to move here, perhaps I can ask one of the ladies to show you around a little. I am sure Gilda could make herself available.”

The blush returned. That explained Miss Bradbury's distraction. Mr. Allen turned to me.

“I have given my dear half-brother a list of certain things to come, which he might care to try to avoid”, he said carefully. “Not so much for the two of you – you are almost home free, as they say, but for those close to you. Family, we believe here, does not end in blood. But doctor, I will tell you one thing that may interest you.”

I leant forward. “Yes?” I asked.

“My half-brother has shown a remarkable flexibility when it comes to dealing with the difference between justice and the law”, he said. “Come to that, he is remarkably flexible in other matters too, but let us not go there just now.”

Aliens in a passing spaceship could have seen my blush.

“Your retirement is guaranteed”, Mr. Allen said, “and it will be long and happy. But it will be disturbed by some three cases. One that will cause you no end of embarrassment, one that will involve someone close to you, and one....”

He hesitated. I started to feel very bad.

“One in which one of you will be a murderer”, he said.

What?

+~+~+

Mr. Allen would say no more, and we were ushered out, somehow losing Miss Bradbury on the way (I suspected that Gilda was involved in that). I was worried by his words, but Cas seemed truly happy at having met him, and I suppose that that was enough for me.

+~+~+

In our next adventure, I learn that the new medium of photography can be mis-used, and that seeing is not always believing.....


	7. Case 114: Metamorphosis (1903)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously published as 'The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier'.

I

There was a certain irony in the fact that our next case that year of nineteen hundred and three began when it did, on October the eleventh. I had been reading in the Times about the establishment of the Women’s Social and Political Union, apparently a splinter group from the suffragist movement which had been pushing for equal rights for women for decades now. This new movement promised – or threatened – ‘Deeds not Words’, and I was concerned that the general movement, which I tacitly supported, might be set back by such un-English aggression. Time would indeed prove me right (for once); the new tactics would only serve to harden opposition against extending the franchise, and it would be the essential part played by the fairer sex in the Great War which would result in women eventually obtaining the vote. Poor old Simon de Montfort must have been spinning in his grave!  
   
I was about to see such aggression in the New Woman first hand, for that morning we had an unexpected visitor. Miss Holston Beauregard was about thirty, dressed in what was almost a manly-like set of clothes, and clearly thought a great deal of herself. She was also American, which may or may not have had something to do with that fact.  
   
“Hmph!” she said, looking disapprovingly first at Cas and then at me. “Well, I’ve no time for men in general, but I suppose I’ve seen worse. You’ll have to do.”  
   
I think that I am safe in saying that, ever since Mrs. Emmeline Strong, Cas’ services have never been solicited in quite so unusual a manner. Of course, he remained unperturbed.  
   
“How may we be of service, madam?” he asked politely.  
   
“Not to me”, she said firmly, and I bit back a smile. Cas' famous charm would not work on this harridan. “My good friend Elizabeth wants to find a man.”  
   
“Indeed”, Cas said. “A particular gentleman, one presumes?”  
   
She narrowed her eyes at him, which was a mistake on her part. Cas could out-stare a python. She blinked.  
   
“Hmph!” she said again, looking curiously at him. “Yes. I think you might do very well.”  
   
I almost moved from my place when I saw the predatory look on her face, but Cas shook his head at her. Even though she was not looking in my direction, I glared evilly at her.  
   
“The case, madam”, Cas pressed.  
   
She sighed, sounding almost disappointed. Our retirement seemed a long way off at that moment.  
   
“Elizabeth has conceived some frankly idiotic notion that she is in love with a soldier, based on his photograph!” she said scornfully. “There’s no reasoning with someone when that happens, and believe me gentlemen, I have tried! But she will not be told! I need you to find the man in question, so she can see what he is like, and if he is acceptable.”  
   
“What information do you have on him?” Cas asked.  
   
“Very little”, she frowned. “It is all incredibly vexing. Elizabeth works in a bakery next door to a photography studio, where they display some of their work in the window. Recently they put up this shot of four soldiers in uniform, and she thinks one of them is – and I cannot believe she actually said that awful word – ‘dreamy!’”  
   
I turned away to hide my smile. Miss Beauregard sounded like her friend had just confessed to a massacre of puppies!  
   
“You have not made efforts to find the man yourself?” Cas asked.  
   
She snorted.  
   
“Elizabeth went into the shop and turned on the waterworks for the owner”, she said scornfully. “Honestly, the things some men will do just because a woman cries! He told her that the name of the man who paid for the photo was Lieutenant Jeremy Anderson, the son of Colonel Theophilius Anderson. He’s not the one, by the way; the object of her affections is the man at the back.”  
   
“And you have since approached Mr. Anderson?” Cas asked.  
   
“I did”, she said. “Elizabeth was terrified when I suggested it, but I believe in doing things, not daydreaming about them. Deeds, not words, as they say in the paper today. He told me that the man was a fellow lieutenant who died of an illness two months ago, not long after the picture was taken.”  
   
Cas looked at her in surprise.  
   


"Then why...." Cas began.

“Because I’m not going to be taken for a fool, Mr. Novak!” our visitor said sharply. “Back in my homeland I am a school-teacher, and I’ve been lied to by the best. I've had boys who have stared at me unblinking and denied hitting someone, then not even blushed when I told them I saw them do it! That man was hiding something, and I want Elizabeth to know the truth. I told her what the young idiot said, but I made it quite clear that I did not believe a word of it.”  
   
“You do understand that my investigations may only serve to confirm the death”, Cas pointed out.  
   
“They will not”, she said with an absolute certainty. “Anyway, I must go now. My card. You will inform me of your progress in the case.”  
   
She nodded to us, and swept from the room. I stared after her.  
   
“We should have sent her to Africa, and set her loose on the Boers”, I said.  
   
“Jus in bello”, Cas reminded me. “There are rules about decency to one’s fellow humans, even in warfare. But that lady is most definitely a force to be reckoned with. I wonder if she is right?”  
   
+~+~+  
   
If Miss Holston Beauregard made a less than favourable impression, then the same could not be said of her friend, whom we waited on the following day. Miss Elizabeth Woodhouse was clearly mortified when she understood why we were there, and it took all of Cas' persuasive abilities to calm her down.  
   
“I do wish Bo had not called you in”, she said apologetically. “She is such a force of nature when she gets an idea into her head. Though I shall miss her when she returns to the United States in the New Year.”

I silently felt sorry for all Americans. Cas looked at me knowingly.  
   
“She did not believe Lieutenant Anderson when he told her that his friend had died”, he said. “May I venture to ask your opinion on the subject, Miss Woodhouse?”  
   
She sighed.  
   
“I know I am being silly and melodramatic”, she said, “but the moment I saw that photograph, I wanted to know that man. He looked so handsome and so…. I know it is odd to say, but so sad. As if the cares of the world were on his shoulders.”  
   
“Is the photograph still on display in the window?” Cas asked.  
   
She shook her head.  
   
“The day after I spoke to the shop-owner, it was removed”, she said sadly. “I presume that he must have informed Lieutenant Anderson.”  
   
Cas nodded, and seemed to think for some little time.  
   
“I am going to investigate this case, Miss Woodhouse”, he said eventually. “Something about it feels wrong, and I would like to know the truth. I shall of course keep both you and Miss Beauregard fully informed of any developments, but in all fairness I must warn you, as I warned her, that it may be that Lieutenant Anderson was speaking the truth when he said his friend was dead.”  
   
“I do not think he is”, she said quietly, “but I would have to admit that it may just be wishful thinking on my part. Thank you, Mr. Novak.”  
   
II  
   
“We are going to need to call in the services of Balthazar on this”, Cas said once we were in the cab headed back to Baker Street. “I need to see that photograph in order to make any progress, and I feel sure that Mr. Anderson would not co-operate if approached.”  
   
“How are you going to get him to show you the photograph, then?” I asked.  
   
He smiled.  
   
“I know a little about this wonderful new technology”, he said. “The shop owner may have handed him the photograph, but he will retain the negative in case the customer requires any further orders. We just have to persuade him to part with it.”  
   
“And you think Balthazar can persuade him?” I asked doubtfully.  
   
“I suspect he will enjoy playing the part of the government agent who needs that image for unspecified reasons, and telling the shop owner that divulging his visit would have decidedly unpleasant consequences!” Cas grinned.  
   
I suspected that he was right.  
   
+~+~+  
   
Two days later, Cas received a photograph in the post, along with a note from his brother. He shook his head when he read it.

“Apparently Balthazar chose to have some of his men break into the shop to obtain the negative, then break back in the next night to replace it”, he said. “I suppose using more conventional means did not occur to him.”

I looked at the photograph that was the centre of our case. It showed four men in lieutenants' uniforms, one standing in the very centre, two more flanking him, and a fourth stood looking almost apologetic at being there just behind the others. That, presumably, was the object of Miss Elizabeth Woodhouse's affections. Frankly he was not much to look; about twenty-five to thirty, and most probably a beta by the size of him.

“They are just four men in the King's army”, I said. “It does not show much.”

Cas grinned.

“On the contrary”, he said. “It shows rather a lot.”

“I do not see it”, I complained.

“Then I would draw your attention to two things”, he said. “The unusual pallor on the fourth man's face, and his nose.”

“What about his nose?” I asked, exasperatedly.

“I think a visit to the shop owner is called for”, Cas said. “I will need your medical expertise to back me up. I may have to stretch the truth just a little....”

+~+~+

The shop in question was Watkin and Sons, Professional Photographers. Inside, we were met by a bearded beta who introduced himself as the owner, Mr. Edward Watkin. 

“I would rather have the conversation we are about to undertake in private”, Cas said. “It is not something I think you would wish one of your valued customers to walk in on.”

The man looked understandably nervous, but after exchanging a few words with one of his employees, guided us out to a small office in the back. Once we were all seated, Cas began.

“I wish you to understand the utter seriousness of this conversation, Mr. Watkin”, he said. “I am representing the British government in a most important and delicate matter, and we may be dealing with the very gravest consequences. Not just the ruination of your business, but death and panic on a large scale.”

The man was already beginning to sweat.

“I do not understand”, he said.

“It concerns a photograph you did some two to three months ago”, Cas said. “I really hope you can remember it, for your own sake. It was commissioned by a Lieutenant Jeremy Anderson, and featured himself and three of his fellow officers.”

The man frowned.

“This is not about that awful woman who went to see him, is it?” he asked. “Because if it is.....”

“This is about your certain ruination if you keep interrupting me!” Cas snapped, which was quite unlike him. “My time is my own, and I am putting myself at risk by coming here. Now listen!”

The man shrank back before his anger.

“This does concern the fourth soldier in that photograph, though not for any good reason”, Cas said. “And not to do with that dratted American woman, whose involvement in the case is a complication we could well have done without. As a photographer, you would have had to stand close to these people to put them into the correct position before taking the photograph. When you took this particular one, did you notice anything unusual about that fourth soldier?”

The photographer hesitated.

“A blanched face, perhaps?” Cas prompted.

“Yes, he was”, the man said. “And he seemed very nervous. He did not like me standing close to him.”

Cas sighed.

“No, he would not”, he said. “I only wish we had been able to contact Lieutenant Anderson in this matter, but for obvious reasons we cannot.”

“Why not?” the photographer asked.

Cas leaned forward.

“Mr. Watkin”, he said gravely, “there is a very strong probability that when he visited your shop that day, the fourth man was in the early stages of a deadly disease that he had contracted from the regiment's time in India. It has an unusually long gestation period – about three months, is that not right doctor?”

He looked at me for support.

“Indeed”, I said. “Three months is the norm.”

“And it is incredibly, highly infectious”, Cas said. “In terms of the fatality rate, it is not far behind the fabled Black Death. Fortunately it only tends to spread to others once that period is elapsed.” He looked around the office pointedly before adding ominously, “most of the time.”

The photographer was clearly close to a panic attack.

“You are saying that my shop – I – could be infected?” he gasped.

“There is a treatment”, Cas said, “but there is also a problem. Like the Black Death, this disease has two forms, in this case a severe one and a mild one. The application of the wrong treatment to a person could kill them. We desperately need to track down this man and find out which strain he has, most certainly without anyone - and I include Lieutenant Anderson in that - becominga ware of our actions.”

“But what about me?” the photographer demanded.

“Once we ascertain the illness, we can decide upon the treatment”, Cas said. “If it is the mild strain, there is no risk of contagion; indeed, that manifests itself as little more than a common cold. But a blanched face like you describe.... it does not bode well.”

“I shall fetch my records at once!” the photographer said, almost falling out of his chair in his eagerness to help. He all but ran from the room.

I looked at Cas sharply.

“Infectious disease?” I asked. “What if he talks?”

“And tell everyone that they could catch something fatal by coming into his shop?” Cas asked, quirking his eyebrow at me. “It would be the death of his business. No, he will not talk.”

Devious bastard!

III

Apart from Lieutenant Anderson, the others in the picture turned out to be Lieutenants Mainwaring-Brown, Fellows and Frater, the third-mentioned being the target of our inquiry. A week passed, and although Cas did not ostensibly do much with regard to the case, I knew he was up to something. He was receiving regular reports from somebody by telegram each evening, and he seemed generally satisfied with their content. It was exactly a week after the trip to the shop that he surprised me at dinner one evening.  
   
“I think it is time we went down to Biddleston Hall, and concluded this case”, he said. 

“Where is that?” I asked.

“Lieutenant Anderson's house in the country, in west Norfolk”, he said. I rather think we may find the mysterious Lieutenant Frater there as well.”

“He is definitely not dead, then?” I asked.  
   
“Not exactly”, he said, to my evident mystification. “But I know who he really is. I can also make a guess as to why there is no record of him on the army pay-roll, though if I am right, the case will require some delicate handling.”  
   
“There is no danger?” I asked warily.  
   
“Lieutenant Anderson may be annoyed at what we have discovered, but I hope I can make him see it is all for the best”, he said. “I fear it will not be easy. He has acted in what he sees as just cause, and it may be hard to persuade him otherwise.”

+~+~+

I was still working on my writings that evening when Cas went to bed, and I muttered that I would not be long, as I was wrestling with a particularly tricky part of 'Asylum', my story of the 'disappearance' of Lady Frances Carfax. After some effort I had the story the way I wanted it, and put my papers away before going to my room to undress. Then I slipped across to Cas' room, slowly pushing the door open. He was laid on the bed, reading, wearing those black-framed square reading-glasses of his.

And nothing else! Six foot one of gloriously naked alpha, and all mine!

I may have let out a whimper of happiness, judging from the faint quirk to his lips, but he ignored me and carried on with his book. I frowned, and moved to the side of the bed, kneeling down before starting to kiss his ankle, which I knew was one of the spots that turned him on. He shuddered slightly, but did not put his book down.

All right, clearly I would have to up my game here. I moved round to kiss his other ankle, before working my way slowly up his left leg, to where his cock was already at full mast, leaking pre-come. Not wanting to make things easy for him, I switched my attentions to his left hand, gently removing it from his book and kissing each finger before taking it into my mouth, then working my way up his muscled arm. He growled, but continued to read his book, which I could now see was one about bees.

I replaced his left hand and transferred the book to it before giving his right hand the same treatment, and working my way up his right arm before nuzzling into his neck. I gently bit a love-bite into his glorious neck – not one that would last, unlike the ones he loved to leave on me (and the ones I loved to have) – then ran my fingers through his hair, making it even more of a mess.

“Love you”, I whispered. I was always a little amazed as to how easy those words came when I was with Cas, but then, he had a way of making everything easy. I nibbled my way across his chest, then sucked gently at first one nipple and then the other. He moaned, and his book finally fell away. I grinned in triumph....

…. until he flipped me with his inhuman strength and stared down hungrily at me. I was already hard, but the sight of my lover naked except for those glasses and towering over me was wonderful. He felt around my entrance, and raised an eyebrow when he found the plug,

“You prepared yourself”, he growled. “Good boy!”

I had little time to revel in his praise before he removed the plug and began thrusting in, easing home with practised skill and, bastard that he was, deliberately ignoring my prostate. I writhed on the bed beneath him, but he held me down easily with his hips alone, his arms supporting his weight as he arched his back above me. My muscles felt like jelly, and he must have taken pity on me for he suddenly reached down and pulled my legs up, striking my prostate full-on. I whined in happiness, wishing both that this could last forever and yet that I could come. The latter happened within seconds, and my eruption took Cas over the cliff with me, before he tumbled on top of me, smearing my come into both our chests. 

We lay there for some little time before he peeled himself back off of me and wiped us both down, whilst remaining inside of me. Only then did he slowly pull out and cuddle up against me, holding me tight to him as we both fell asleep, exhausted. I was so damn lucky!

+~+~+

After breakfast - and more sex-with-Cas-wearing-glasses that left we weak at the knees - we took a cab to Liverpool Street Station and a Great Eastern Railway train to King’s Lynn. From there it was onto the Midland and Great Northern Railway, and a positively antiquated train over which I had serious doubts. Nevertheless, the well-kept locomotive moved a lot faster than it looked capable of, and it was not long before we were pulling into Biddlesford Halt. Unsurprisingly there was no carriage at the station, but as the Hall could clearly be seen to the south of the nearby village, we decided to walk, perhaps not the wisest decision as it meant when we finally arrived at the place, Cas' hair looked like he has walked through a tornado. Twice!  
   
Lieutenant Anderson was at home, and received us graciously enough, inquiring at to the purpose of our visit.  
   
“That is somewhat difficult to explain”, Cas said. “It concerns a certain photograph that was taken of you and two of your fellow officers.”  
   
The man’s expression did not change, but I definitely saw him tense. I wondered also at the use of the 'two'.  
   
“What is your interest in that?” he asked cautiously.  
   
“I was wondering if you knew that you had actually perpetrated a criminal offence.”  
   
The man had clearly not been expecting that. His face fell.  
   
“What do you mean?” he asked.  
   
“Misrepresentation of a person as a member of the British Army is an offence punishable by time in jail”, Cas said gravely. “Not only that, but those aiding and abetting the crime also attract a penalty, especially if they are in the armed forces themselves.”  
   
“What do you want?” the lieutenant ground out.  
   
“I require the real name of 'Lieutenant Frater'”, Cas said, “although I already have some idea as to who he really is. And why you did what you did that day.”  
   
The soldier sighed, and sat back heavily.  
   
“I suppose there is no harm in telling you”, he said. “But I warn you, it is hard to believe. Even for me, and I was there!”  
   
He took a deep breath.  
   
“My father, the colonel, married my mother when they were both very young”, he said. “It was a happy marriage, but there were no children, and once he passed forty years of age, he became increasingly anxious to secure the dynasty. There have been Andersons at Biddlesford since the thirteenth century, you see. Finally, when he was forty-three, my mother became pregnant with me. Although I was born two months early and she herself died of complications soon afterwards, I survived.  
   
“My father died four years ago, and I cherish the fact that I made lieutenant shortly before he passed on. At least, I did cherish it – until I found out he left me a most unexpected surprise in his will.”  
   
“What was it?” I asked.  
   
“A half-brother!”  
   
IV  
   
It sounds like a cliché to say that it was only at that moment that I became aware just how loud the tick of the grandfather clock in the corner was, yet it was true. I stared at our host in shock. Cas, of course, was unruffled.  
   
“You found a brother?” I managed eventually. He nodded.  
   
“Father had had an affair with an Indian woman some two years before I was born”, he said. “George and Tom – the other men in the picture – they knew, and managed things for him so I would not find out. His name was Benedict, after my uncle, and he had had the best education that money could buy. But when Father died, of course I had to be told.”  
   
“What did you do?” Cas asked softly.  
   
“I was lucky”, he said. “My time over there was almost up, and I was allowed to return early to sort out the estate. George and Tom, as executors, came back with me. Before that though, I sought out Ben and persuaded him to come to England with me.”  
   
“But wait a minute”, I protested. “The soldier Miss Woodhouse was interested in was white!”  
   
“Miss Woodhouse?” Mr. Anderson asked, confused. “Oh, is she the friend of that harridan who descended on me in London that time?”

I did not bother to suppress the smile.  
   
“My client is Miss Elizabeth Woodhouse”, Cas explained, “who saw your half-brother in a picture and had somewhat strong feelings as a result. Her most formidable friend, Miss Holston Beauregard, was the lady who spoke to you. Or at you. The doctor and I endured the same experience.”  
   
“You have my sympathies”, Mr. Anderson said. “I was most alarmed by her forthrightness, and I am afraid that I lied to her about his passing. But this Miss Woodhouse – you must correct her at once.”  
   
“Correct her about what?” I asked.  
   
“Theatrics”, Cas said, as if that explained everything.  
   
“How did you know?” Mr. Anderson asked.  
   
“Several things”, Cas said, “the most obvious being that the British Army, for reasons of utter stupidity, does not allow the native Indian to ascend to the dizzy heights of the rank of lieutenant. A photographer who does a lot of military work would know that, but he was presented with what he thought were four white officers, even if one of them looked somewhat foreign. Your brother is what is often unfairly referred to as 'a half-caste', so applying theatrical face powder completed the illusion.”  
   
“Your nose!” I blurted out. Mr. Anderson looked at me in surprise. I blushed fiercely.  
   
“Pardon?” he said, clearly nonplussed.  
   
“One of the clues was that both you and your half-brother inherited the aquiline nose from a common ancestor”, Cas said. “Your grandfather, judging from the portrait in the entrance-hall.”  
   
The man nodded, and leaned forward.  
   
“I must urge you to see my position, gentlemen”, he said. “I have had no trouble accepting Ben as my half-brother; indeed, I intend to drag him to the next county ball for his sins, to make it as official as possible. But your Miss Woodhouse has fallen in love with a fantasy, a handsome white soldier with foreign looks. Ben is not dark-skinned, but I think she would be shocked to see what he is really like.”  
   
“I rather think you underestimate her”, Cas said. “But of course, you could always explain things to her friend if you wished? We could even arrange for her to come up here?”

The lieutenant looked terrified at that prospect.  
   
“Absolutely not!” he said firmly, himself blanching at the prospect. “That is most definitely not going to happen; if that dratted woman comes anywhere near here, I am reaching for my shotgun! But if Ben agrees, I will invite Miss Woodhouse up for the day, and we shall see what we shall see.”  
   
+~+~+  
   
See it we did. Mr. Anderson’s fears proved less than groundless, and Miss Woodhouse made it clear to his half-brother that the skin colour of the young man interested her marginally less than the rainfall figures for Outer Mongolia in August. They were married at the end of the following year, emigrated to live near her American friend a few months after that, and had their first child in nineteen hundred and six.  
   
Then they went and named him Beauregard, poor thing!

+~+~+

In our next story, the impossible happened. Cas and I parted!


	8. Case 115: The Born-Again Identity (1903)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously published as 'The Adventure of the Three Gables'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Begin narration by Mr. Castiel Novak)

I

 

I can truly say that Dean and I were happy together in 221B Baker Street, and I hoped to see out the last year before our retirements in peace. Apart from those two painful three-year periods when he and I were parted – first because of the discovery of my half-brother Jimmy that so shook my family, and second during my ‘death’ in Lawrence – not a case went by that he did not accompany me. I know how much it pained him, despite the many times he denied it, when people commented that he was there solely as my biographer, bringing my small successes to the wider public. Even if we were parted for but a few hours, I could feel myself aching at his absence, knowing that something fundamental in my life was not there. I had thought I would see out that final year with his having assisted me on every case except during those painful times, but in December of nineteen hundred and three, events transpired to cause me to undertake a case whilst parted from him.  
   
I hated it. Coming back to Baker Street every day knowing it would be cold and Dean-less, it made the dark December days seem ever darker. But a promise is a promise, and I am a man of my word.  
   
Mostly.  
   
+~+~+  
   
I had been undertaking a moderately interesting case concerning a middle-ranking political figure on behalf of Balthazar that month, which had been dragging on since September. This was galling, as Dean and I had been invited to York, where his brother Samuel now worked at a legal practice where he was a partner, to spend Christmas with him and his family. Poor Dean was clearly torn; part of him wanted to see his brother, but part did not want to be separated from me. When it became clear that I would have to remain ‘on call’ for much of the month, I snapped and had a blazing row with Balthazar, during which much was said that should not have been said. He accused me of putting my own interests first, and I reminded him of the many times I had helped him out at my own expense, and often at danger to my own person. It ended with me forcibly removing him from Baker Street and telling him not to show his face there again. I do not think I have ever been so angry!  
   
Of course Dean, who had little enough reason to like my brother, played the peacemaker, and with the help of my dear sister effected a partial reconciliation. Eventually I agreed that I would stay in London until the twenty-first, but not a day longer, and if the case dragged on beyond that date, it could be someone else’s problem. I knew Dean had wanted to spend at least two weeks before the holy day in the North, so I pressed him to go ahead of me, assuring him several times over that nothing would keep me from the night sleeper on the twenty-first, getting me into York three days before Christmas. We had a sorrowful parting on the twelfth, and I returned to a cold and empty Baker Street, knowing it would be ten long days before I would see him again.  
   
+~+~+  
   
It was perhaps typical that a solitary case arose during that brief time, when I did not have my faithful friend and scribe with me. I would not have got myself involved, had not the man requesting my aid come to Baker Street expecting to see Dean. His name was Mr. Stuart Faygate, and he was a lawyer hailing from Rothbury in Northumberland, with whom Dean had struck up a friendship at Bargate, the college where I had met him rather too many years ago. He had also worked with Samuel Winchester in Edinburgh, so the reedy blond alpha had a double claim on my time.  
   
“This is really most vexing”, Mr. Faygate said, taking off and polishing his wire-rimmed spectacles. “I had so hoped Dean would help me enlist your aid, although I should have remembered that he does sometimes spend Christmas with his brother in the North. I suppose I should have telegraphed first.”  
   
“I should have been with him”, I said, “but I am delayed here for a rather important case, though it will definitely be concluded by next Monday. Is it anything I could help you with in that time?”  
   
He looked at me uncertainly.  
   
“I do not know if five days will be enough”, he said. “It is all rather bizarre, almost supernatural, though I fear rather more earthly forces are behind it all.”  
   
“Pray tell me about it”, I urged. After all, this was Dean’s friend. I owed it to him to do what I could.  
   
He took a moment to assemble his thoughts before beginning.

“I moved to London some years back”, he began, “and am now partner in a successful practice up in Camden Town. This concerns a client of mine, an elderly gentleman by the name of Mr. Percy Gable. He owns a considerable estate in Golders Green, which is an important part of the story, as it is in an area being considered for development. I understand that he has been offered and has rejected several very lucrative offers for the property. He had two sons, Achilles and Hercules. One can only presume that either he or the late Mrs. Gable were Greek scholars.”  
   
I smiled at that.  
   
“Mr. Gable is seventy-two, and in poor health”, the lawyer continued. “I should add that his sons were born ten years apart, several siblings in between not having survived. Mr. Achilles, the eldest, was very much, I believe the saying is, ‘the apple of his father's eye’, charismatic, outgoing, and popular with all who knew him. He was an alpha, and took part in athletic events when younger. It came as a great tragedy when, last year, he caught a particularly virulent strain of influenza whilst visiting with a friend in France, and died this past January. His father was heart-broken.”  
   
“This meant, of course, that the entire estate devolved upon Mr. Hercules.” The lawyer polished his glasses again, and made a disapproving cough. “I do not wish to speak ill of any person, but he is rather an unsavoury character. He married poorly, a rich lady of questionable status, and they have their own house in Edgware. Until recently he rarely visited his father – that was, until Mrs. Ophelia Bollinger appeared on the scene.”  
   
“Who is Mrs. Bollinger?” I asked.  
   
“She claims to be a medium, and sent a letter to Mr. Gable that his late son was attempting to communicate via the spirit world”, the lawyer said. “Utter hogwash in my humble opinion, but Mr. Gable is unfortunately prone to believe such things, and he seemed to take comfort from this. Had it stopped there all might have been well, but of course it did not.”  
   
“Has the lady asked for money?” I asked.  
   
“I rather think she is too clever for that”, the lawyer said. “I spoke with Mr. Gable some time ago, and he said he had offered her a sum of money merely for expenses, but the lady had refused. However, that was before the events of last week.”  
   
“Go on”, I said.  
   
“Mr. Hercules is, as I have said, not the wisest of men”, the lawyer said (I sensed that he was being more than tactful in that statement). “He made the error of telling his father that all this ‘psychic malarkey’, as he called it, was utter nonsense, and that his brother was as dead as a door-nail. His father did not take it well, and responded by cutting off all communication with him.”  
   
“Not tactful, but understandable”, I said. He nodded.  
   
“I come now to the strange part”, he said. “On the same day that Mr. Hercules confronted his father, Mrs. Bollinger sent him a message requesting an urgent meeting, at which she warned him that his younger son was trying to prevent their communicating, and pleading with him to ignore him. The strange part being that the telegram Mrs. Bollinger sent was, of course, had the time of sending on it – and that was full half an hour before Mr. Hercules arrived at the house!”  
   
“That is odd”, I said, “although I can see one possible explanation. Has anything else of note occurred?”  
   
“Yes”, he said, frowning, “and it is most worrisome. I largely administer Mr. Gable’s estate for him jointly with Mr. Wulfram, the son of his old army friend. A most reliable man, I should say; he works in a bank over in Finsbury Park. He came to me last week, exceedingly worried. Mr. Gable has been selling off his shares and other investments, and buying jewellery. I am afraid he means to present Mrs. Bollinger with some or all of it for her ‘efforts’. And today…..”  
   
He paused, and gave a delicate shudder.  
   
“Today Mr. Gable said that after Christmas, he intends to rewrite his will”, he said. “I very much fear the worst.”  
   
“I see”, I said. “Well, since you are Dean’s friend, I will do what I can with the case in my remaining few days in the capital. But do not hope for miracles, sir.”  
   
He smiled.  
   
“The way Dean writes of you”, he said, “I rather do.”  
   
I blushed.  
   
II  
   
The obvious next thing to do was to go to the house of Mr. Hercules Gable, and see if my hypothesis was correct. If it was, then I should find something to confirm it.  
   
The younger Mr. Gable’s house was called Maryvale, I presumed after his wife. I knew he lived there with their two daughters, one still at school and the other one engaged to be married to a local bank manager. 

I have to say that neither Mr. or Mrs. Gable impressed me much. She was built like a battleship, and clearly regarded my presence as an intrusion into her realm. He was one of those undersized alphas who seemed to have reasoned he could make up for his lack of inches by dousing himself in cologne, wearing a large alpha amulet and being overly assertive in his manner, which only served to make him look like an aggressive lap-dog.

Inches made me think of my absent love, and I smiled inwardly before quickly putting the thought aside for later. An erection just now would be... difficult. Instead I focussed on tackling the matter at hand in a way that would secure me at least some co-operation from this oddly-matched duo.  
   
“I am investigating a lady who is – I am sure I can trust your discretion on this matter, sir, madam – on the run”, I said gravely. “I should state most definitively that she has not herself committed any crime, but certain people have, through a most calamitous alignment of the Fates, come to believe she may have witnessed something very serious. It is highly unlikely that she would have come to this house, of course, but we are sure that she came to this area, seeking domestic service. I have a description of the lady, and would be grateful if you could tell me whether you have hired any new staff in the past twelve months?”  
   
His wife narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously (though probably because I looked untidier than usual, the day having been exceptionally windy), but her husband seemed to be accepting of my story.  
   
“Only the one”, he said. “A new housemaid, Lily, started last Christmas.”  
   
“May I have a physical description?” I asked. “For obvious reasons, I would not wish to startle the lady, or indeed upset your household, without good cause.”  
   
“She is about twenty, plain and thin”, Mrs. Gable said. “Blonde hair and does not wash her hands often enough, but I suppose one has to take what one can get in this day and age. One hopes she will improve with time.”  
   
It sounded right.  
   
“That is definitely not the lady I am looking for”, I said firmly. “Not unless she had lost twenty years and several stone in weight!”  
   
I looked up as I spoke, and noticed for the first time a small photograph of two men standing very stiff. One of them was clearly Mr. Hercules Gable, whilst the other was a young man of about sixteen years of age.  
   
“Your son?” I asked, gesturing to the picture.  
   
“No, my nephew”, he said. “My sister's boy. Lysander. She died last year, and left me in charge of his upbringing, at least until he is twenty-one.”  
   
“He seems a fine young man”, I offered.  
   
“He is her son all right”, Mr. Gable said stiffly. “Thinks he knows it all!”  
   
“Well, I must be on my way”, I said. “Thank you for your information, sir, madam. It appears that I must continue my inquiries elsewhere. Good day.”  
   
+~+~+  
   
The town of Edgware was, fortunately, quite small, and had only one ladies’ outfitters. The lady serving seemed at first mortified that a gentleman would want to know about such things, even if he was a private detective, but fortunately I was able to charm her round.  
   
“Well, we do keep such things, sir”, she admitted, looking over her shoulder as if she feared the police were about to raid her premises for such a grievous offence. “But the demand for them is quite low. Indeed, we have only sold one to my knowledge in all the time I have been here.”  
   
“May I inquire as to whom that was?” I asked.  
   
The lady nodded, and pulled up her sales register.  
   
“Let me see”, she said. “Oh yes, of course, that’s why I remember it. It was a young man and a young lady, buying things for their theatre group. He said it would enable a small lady to play the part of a large one, which would be useful to them. A very nice young man, if I remember.”  
   
She turned the register towards me, and I read the name. ‘Mr. John Smith’.  
   
I was not surprised. At least, not at that.  
   
+~+~+  
   
I had visited Edgware on the Thursday, so on Friday I decided to play my hunch and pay a call on the young Mr. Lysander Gable, who had an establishment in nearby Stanmore. If I was correct in what I thought was behind all this, then there was one way I could be sure.  
   
Mr. Lysander Gable was pleased to see me, though I soon came to wonder whether this had anything to do with my arrival necessitating his removal from his Latin lessons with his tutor. He was a pleasant enough young man, although he was unfortunately passing through that phase so many teenage boys experience when they think a moustache makes them look older and more serious. On him, it looked like a hairy yellow caterpillar had crawled across his upper lip and died there!  
   
“I would like to ask you about a certain lady called Mrs. Bollinger”, I said. “I understand that she is visiting your grandfather and claiming to pass on messages from your late father.”  
   
The boy’s face darkened.  
   
“That old harridan!” he snorted. “She has grandpapa wrapped around her little finger. I would do anything to expose her for the liar she really is.”  
   
“Would you?” I asked. “Then perhaps I may be of service to you, sir.”  
   
He looked at me in surprise.  
   
“How?” he asked.  
   
“I have come across Mrs. Bollinger in the course of my inquiries into another case, in Walthamstow”, I said. “In that case, an elderly gentleman rewrote his will in her favour despite her apparent protestations against such a move, and she made a large sum of money as a result. I had an inquiry in this neighbourhood for another case, and I thought I would do you the courtesy of informing you that I shall speak to your grandfather at the first opportunity.”  
   
“Of course”, he said. “It is important that he knows at once. Thank you for coming to tell me.”  
   
I looked around the room.  
   
“This all seems quite pleasant”, I observed. “I trust your parents left you well provided for?”  
   
He nodded.

“Grandpapa insisted I be a Gable rather than a Cooper if I wanted to ever inherit anything”, he said. “I disagree with my uncle on most things, but we are united in stopping That Woman from taking advantage of an old man!”  
   
“I promise that I will call on him some time tomorrow morning”, I said. “Not too early – that would be discourteous – but before lunch.”  
   
He thanked me again for calling, and I left. It was almost lunch-time, so I adjourned to the nearby town for a surprisingly pleasant dinner in a local restaurant, before calling in at the local post office. The postmaster was surprised at my request, but acquiesced when he knew who I was. The paper I wrote out was copied, and then signed by myself, himself and one of his clerks. I left him a copy before leaving to catch a cab back to a horribly empty Baker Street.

I hated it! And if I went to sleep wrapped around one of Dean's unwashed shirts, that was neither here nor there.  
   
III  
   
The following day I set off for Golders Green, being careful to time my arrival until around eleven o’clock in the morning. I did not expect my reception to be warm – at least, not at first – but I hoped that my target would hear me out. It was most definitely in his interests.  
   
Mr. Percy Gable knew my name, of course, but when I stated that I had met Mr. Faygate, his face darkened.  
   
“Faygate has no business sticking his nose into what does not concern him”, he said angrily. “He is my lawyer, and nothing else.”  
   
“That is unfair, sir”, I said firmly. “He is a good friend to you. If he had not besought himself to approach me for aid, you might well have been duped.”  
   
“I suppose you think that Mrs. Bollinger is a charlatan, too”, he said with a smirk. “Well, Mr. Castiel Novak, what would you say if I told you she was here this morning, and had told me you were coming?”  
   
He was clearly confident that he had me there. I smiled knowingly.  
   
“I would say, sir, that my prophesying powers exceeded hers”, I said, perhaps a trifle too smugly. I took out the paper I had written the day before, and laid it out on the table before him.  
   
“This”, I said, “is my own set of predictions, made yesterday. I predicted that Mrs. Bollinger would indeed arrive before me this morning, and would warn you not to listen to what I had to say. This was signed and witnessed by both the Stanmore postmaster and his clerk, and you will see that he did me the courtesy of including both the time and date with an official Post Office stamp. I do not think I need to tell you, sir, that those are not given out lightly.”  
   
He had gone pale.  
   
“How did you know that?” he demanded.  
   
“I used my abilities, such as they are, rather than any psychic powers”, I said. “I began by looking for motive, because criminals are, mercifully, not usually prone to do things without reason. The arrival of Mrs. Bollinger upset four people; your son, grandson, and the two people administering your estate. I decided that your blood had more to gain, so I focussed on the first two.”  
   
“My son would never do anything like that!” the old man said hotly.  
   
“It was your son who appeared to have the most to lose”, I went on. “His house is full of expensive items, and even allowing for his wife’s wealth, he strikes me as the sort of person who would welcome more money. But then there was the curious case of Mrs. Bollinger anticipating your son’s protest against her.”  
   
“The lady is psychic”, Mr. Gable said. “What is so surprising?”  
   
“That is good”, I said, “because when the police came to arrest her this morning, she will have known in advance and have already fled.”  
   
He stared at me in surprise.  
   
“What do you mean?” he demanded. “Why should they arrest her?”  
   
“For her part in an attempt to extort money from you”, I said. “She was one half of a highly professional scheme which, had it succeeded, would have greatly benefited her partner in crime.”  
   
“I suppose you mean Hercules”, he said, sounding doubtful.  
   
“No”, I said. ”Your grandson, Lysander.”

He stared at me as if I were mad.  
   
“He’s only a boy!” he said at last.  
   
“I am sorry, to say, a criminal mastermind in the making”, I said. “He planned this from the moment his mother died. Only his uncle stood between him and a massive inheritance – but I checked with Mr. Faygate, and he confirmed that if Mr. Hercules Gable went to jail before inheriting, that would under the written terms debar not only him but also his daughters from their share of your estate. Mr. Lysander would inherit all. He also knew of your interest in the supernatural, so he decided to play on it.”  
   
“The main problem, of course, would be his uncle, who had the administering of his own estates and whom he did not like. He managed to employ the services of an actress, one Miss Lily Baker. And significantly, she obtained a post working for his uncle as a maid. That would play an important role in the deception that was to come.”  
   
“Next, he took up a sudden interest in the local theatrical society, and was able to fund the purchase of several items for the group. In particular, he secured a false front, which ladies wear to give themselves the impression of a larger bust, for reasons best known to themselves. This was important, as it would play a pivotal role in the transformation of a scrawny blonde housemaid called Miss Lily Baker into a strongly-built dark-haired older woman called Mrs. Ophelia Bollinger. He was even careful there too; there is a real Mrs. Ophelia Bollinger who is indeed a psychic, and lives in Essex.”  
   
“I do not believe it!” Mr. Gable protested. His words lacked conviction.  
   
“The point of having a spy in the enemy camp came into play once his uncle felt threatened enough to confront his father about the lady”, I went on. “Mr. Lysander knew such a thing would happen eventually. His uncle determined to go to the house and put his father to rights. Of course the maid was waiting for just such a development, and as per the plan showed her character's 'psychic powers', thus reinforcing her credentials. She was also careful to not ask for any money up to that point, because after the major rupture between you and your son, you would most likely insist on such a move just to spite him.”  
   
The man before me lowered his head.  
   
“I am sorry for all this”, I said soothingly, “but it is important that you know the truth. It was your extreme good fortune that your lawyer is a close friend to my colleague Doctor Winchester, which was how I became involved in the case. I very much fear for your grandson’s future if he carries on the way he is, but perhaps allowing the uncle he hates to manage his affairs for a further five years will go some way towards punishing him.”  
   
“I do not think I have a grandson any longer”, the old man said darkly.  
   
I think that is a wise decision”, I smiled. “I shall see myself out. Good day.”  
   
IV  
   
I spent the rest of Saturday writing out the notes of the case, and ruing that I had ever teased Dean about the amount of time he spent with a pen in his hand. My arm seriously ached by the end of the day! Sunday passed painfully slowly, but at least there were no developments in the case I had agreed to wait for. But I found myself growing increasingly impatient; I was packed by mid-day, and was restless all the way through to bedtime. Where I slept in my cold, empty bed.  
   
I woke at five the following morning, and decided that enough was enough. I had promised to remain in London until Monday, and Monday was now here, albeit just. I washed and shaved quickly, then threw my things together before racing downstairs. To my surprise Mrs. Lindberg, never usually an early riser, was up and standing by the door.  
   
“The cab is waiting outside, sir”, she said. “You should make the first train with ease.”  
   
I do not think I have ever loved her more. I kissed her perfunctorily, then almost managed to fall over the coat-stand in my eagerness to get through the door, choosing to forgive her chuckle at my clumsiness. The ride to King’s Cross was eerily beautiful, through gas-lit streets still devoid of life. Once at the station, I had just enough wits to telegraph ahead that I was coming, and would be there just after midday.

The stations seemed to crawl by, and although I had breakfast on the train around Hitchin, I was too excited to eat much. At Peterborough I returned to my first-class compartment – a corridor train, which I disliked - and pulled all the blinds down, wanting privacy until I reached York and my love I really hoped Dean would come to meet me at the station, but I doubted it as I knew his brother's house was less than five minutes walk. Or a very quick cab ride.

At Doncaster there was the usual delay as we switched locomotives where the Great Northern Railway gave way to the North Eastern. We had just started off again when, to my intense annoyance, someone slid open the door, blatantly ignoring the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the blinds.....

Dean was standing there. Dean, panting furiously, gazing at me through those forest-green eyes. I stared at him for a moment, then I broke, hurtling towards him and falling against him as he struggled to slide closed the door. I whimpered piteously like an omega in heat, desperate for his alpha, but he held me at arms' length for a moment.

“I tipped the conductor”, he said softly. “It is about thirty-five miles to York. I couldn't wait.”

“I need you inside me”, I said desperately, wanting to tear all his clothes off of that gorgeous body but somehow managing (just) to refrain from so doing. “Take me, Dean. Make me yours again.”

He kissed me long and hard, and I could feel his erection even through his trousers and mine. He removed his and my clothes quickly enough, and eased my naked form down onto the seat, pulling down the arm-rests to give me something to grip onto. To my surprise he slipped a cock-ring onto me, before quickly working me open. I groaned pleasurably as he pushed in, until he was seated inside of me and attacking my prostate like he was determined to destroy it. I wondered briefly if I could do as he had done more than once, and break the confining steel ring, but all too soon he was coming inside of me, panting with the exertion. Then he leaned forward and kissed me.

“Dean?” I managed, gesturing to the ring. I really needed release too. But to my surprise, he just stood up and sat back on the chair opposite.

“Your turn”, he said, grinning as he raised his legs in the air. 

I managed to stand up on wobbly legs, and made my way across to him. Then I just stared.

“You have the plug in you!” I said accusingly.

“And I've been wearing my own ring ever since York”, he said, his breathing becoming laboured once more. “Hurry the damn up!”

I gently removed the plug and placed it on the seat, before pushing quickly inside of him. It felt so good, especially as I had been deprived of this for ten long, cold days. Of course we did not couple every night, but not being able to do so made this so much more fulfilling. In every sense.

“Fill me up with that monster of yours!” Dean groaned. “Come on, Cas!”

I pushed in even harder, driving us both towards orgasm, and in my excitement and passion forgot the restraining ring of steel that was still holding me back. Or at least it had been; I suddenly felt it fall from me, and I exploded inside Dean with a guttural snarl, painting his insides. He must have set his own ring to loosen under pressure, for my release was too much for him and he came violently, his come splattering the mirror behind him.

“Wow!” I managed weakly.

“Yes”, he said, seemingly just as shattered. “Wow. Um, Sammy's picking us up from the station, so perhaps we'd better make ourselves presentable?”

“Says the man who came all this way just because he couldn't wait”, I bitched, hugging him close to me. “These last ten days have been horrible, Dean. I am never being separated from you for that long ever again.”

He nodded in agreement, and we set about trying to make ourselves look respectable.

+~+~+

Judging from the knowing look that Samuel Winchester gave us on the platform at York Station, we might not have been one hundred per cent successful.  
   
(End narration by Mr. Castiel Novak)

+~+~+

Together again, our next adventure would see our last Christmas before the Great Move interrupted by a case that would take us into the beautiful Galloway region, and a standing stone that seemed to attract murders....


	9. Case 116: Scarecrow (1903-1904)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously published as 'The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: This case differs from the original in its solution, and contains the truth about Cas' involvement in the flight of that dangerous Irish nationalist, Mr. Seamus Flanagan.

I

Ten long days apart from Cas, and at the end it had been just too much to bear. When the telegram had arrived, telling me that he would be on the first train up from London that Monday, I felt like a little boy whose Christmases had all come at once. My brother put up with me for all of ten minutes before telling me I was being an ass, and taking me down to the station where he put me on the first southbound train for Doncaster (I could have just reached Peterborough, but would only have had ten minutes in hand, and I had this terrible fear that I might miss the love of my life and have to wait even longer). Finding Cas in that compartment had been like coming home.

Moments later, we were both coming. Home. (Sorry!).

I had the blue-eyed bastard back, and I was determined never to let go of him again. All was right with my world, even if he had been inveigled into some case during our separation, and I would have to write it up for him – his handwriting was one of the few that made my own look comparatively legible! I could even endure my brother's and sister-in-law's teasing as long as I had Cas. Which I did, Repeatedly.  
   
Cas’ present to me that year (apart from the usual!) had been a replica of the original Winchester 1866 rifle, with a personal engraving of both our names on the butt. Mine to him was a gold chain with a blue sapphire at the end, which I had seen him eye in the jeweller’s shop in Baker Street. My nephews and niece were at Jessica's parents for the New Year, so it was just the four of us for the last few days, which was nice in its own way. Much as I loved being Uncle Dean (and Cas adored being Uncle Cas), an adult Christmas, our last before we decamped next September to our new hideaway was wonderful. True, we could still visit them for the festive season thereafter, but it felt like this was in some way a defining moment. Just nine months to get through without any hiccups, and we were there.  
   
Of course, we didn’t make it nine days. We were due to travel back to London on the evening of Saturday the second (the night sleeper, though I did not plan on sleeping much!), but on New Year’s Day a friend of Sammy’s called round, hoping to persuade him to help elicit our aid. He could not believe his luck that we were actually there in the house. For rather different reasons, neither could I!

I had been in the middle of enjoying a well-written rant in the local newspaper about the government’s clamping down on those 'automobile' death-traps – officially-sanctioned number-plates and a twenty miles per hour speed limit, which seemed fair enough – when the Reverend Reuben Carroll was introduced. He was a small man even for an omega, clearly quite nervous but also very determined.  
   
“I was hoping that you gentlemen might take an interest in a rather difficult matter that has evolved in my home parish”, he began.  
   
His accent was definitely Scots, but not the harsher tones of the central and north. Most definitely a Borderer. Cas smiled at him.  
   
“Where is that?” he asked.  
   
“The village of Mazarin, just north of the Galloway town of Kirkcudbright”, he said.  
   
That explained the accent, I thought. The Gallowegians had been a late edition to the Scottish kingdom, having been wrested from the ancient English land of Northumbria and then fought over for many centuries thereafter. Despite their relative closeness to my native Northumberland, I had never been there, it laying off the beaten track to just about anywhere.  
   
“What is the problem?” Cas asked.  
   
“The local landowner, Lord Fleet”, he said. “He owns nearly all the land south and east of the village, and recently he purchased a block of land between his estate and the railway line, so as to enable him to safely have hunting parties in his woods. Unfortunately he has trampled over local sensibilities in the process; the villagers use that land to access the River Dee, and now they cannot reach it. He has threatened to shoot anyone who tries to cross it, and they have responded with attacks on his fences and hedges. It is not much as yet, but the men on both sides are hot-headed, and I fear that matters may well escalate.”  
   
“Why do you think we could help?” I asked curiously.  
   
“Lord Fleet is a great reader of your literature, doctor”, he said earnestly. “I was hoping you might talk to him, and persuade him to at least grant access across the land on a set path. The villagers are being led in their opposition by the owner of the sole tavern, Mr. Alan Dallas, and he is determined to ‘push back the local nobleman’, as he puts it.”  
   
“This does sound rather interesting”, Cas said. “I am sure that the capital's criminal fraternity would not object to our absence for a few more days. If the good doctor has no objection, then we will accompany you back across the border.”  
   
“Of course not”, I lied. The vicar beamed.  
   
“Thank you”, he said, evidently relieved.  
   
II  
   
It says something about the railway network that the journey from York to Mazarin, though roughly the same in distance as that to London, took considerably longer. Of course it was four trains rather than one; the North Eastern Railway to Newcastle and then Carlisle (taking us through Haydon Bridge, which brought back memories of the 'surprising' Mr. Fairdale Hobbs), then the Glasgow and South Western Railway first to Castle Douglas before a tiny single-coach branch-line train took us to Mazarin Halt, about halfway to its eventual destination of Kirkcudbright.  
   
I have to say I took a great liking to Kirkcudbrightshire as a county. Even though we were officially in Scotland, the countryside was far gentler than I was used to from my previous travels north of the Border, and even the railway seemed unhurried, serving to link its many towns and villages to the main line and the outside world, but at its own pace. If it had not been for the climate, I would have seriously considered retiring here instead of Sussex. I thought of that wonderful cottage on the Downs, and I smiled to myself.  
   
Soon.  
Mazarin itself was something of a let-down given its beautiful surroundings, a rather dour village set about a quarter of a mile from the halt which served it. My impression of it was probably not helped by a steady drizzle from an overcast sky, which cast a grey pallor over the land beneath. There was certainly no missing Mazarin Hall, which loomed over the village on a slight hill. The River Dee ran beneath the railway just south of the halt, then turned away to enter some rather dark-looking woods. There was a single standing stone set some way back from the riverside, and somewhat ominously, several men gathered around it. And close by, rather oddly, a scarecrow; odd because there appeared to be no crops in the field. The three of us walked over to them.  
   
“”This is Constable McGyver”, the priest said, gesturing to a rotund alpha policeman. “Jacob, this is Mr. Castiel Novak and Doctor Dean Winchester. From London!”  
   
The way he said it, we might as well have been from Mars. The constable nodded dourly at us.  
   
“You’re too late, gentlemen”, he said grimly. “It’s come to blood now.”  
   
“Blood?” the vicar gasped. “What? Who?”  
   
“Mr. Alan”, the constable said. “Found shot dead in the field this morning, right by the Mazarin Stone.”  
   
“Gentlemen”, Cas said firmly, “I think we are achieving little out here other than to get soused by your Gallowegian weather. May I suggest we adjourn to somewhere drier, and we can discuss what has happened? And of course, for the doctor to examine the body.”  
   
“Maybe dry”, the constable said, “but I dare say he mayn’t look over poor Mr. Dallas. His daughter flipped when I suggested even getting Doc Ross in Kirkcudbright to come up and take a look.”  
   
“Interesting”, Cas said, as we began walking back to the village. “One might have thought that she would be keen to pursue her father’s killer. But as the police officer on duty, you do have the right to insist.”  
   
“That’d be a London way of thinking”, the constable said flatly. “You’d be away back to the Great Wen in a few days, sir, whilst I have to spend the rest of my life here with these people. Upsetting them isn’t wise.”  
   
“I see your point, constable”, Cas said. “Let us see if Miss Dallas can be persuaded to co-operate. But before we approach her, we shall establish the facts of what happened, and proceed from there.”  
   
+~+~+  
   
The constable looked pointedly at the vicar. The four of us were sat in the police station, to which we had adjourned. The vicar coughed.  
   
“I suppose I had better start by explaining the area”, he said. “The Mazarin Stone is probably as old as Stonehenge, but is a solitary standing stone set in a field by the river for reasons as yet unknown. We have made some digs around it to see if there were ever any other stones nearby, but have found nothing. The thing is huge, and not of any rock type found in this area, so it must have either been rolled or floated here. The local legend is that the ancient peoples regarded it as a fertility symbol, and even today some villagers still swear by it.”  
   
The constable coughed pointedly. The vicar reddened.  
   
“Sorry”, he said. “I get carried away with history. The point is that the stone is almost exactly in the middle of the field that the estate purchased recently, and the path across the field goes right up to it, then around it before continuing. It used to be the village common before it was enclosed and sold off, so the villagers feel, rightly or wrongly, that it is theirs by right. And of course they can no longer access the lower parts of the river – at least, not unless they swim down!”  
   
“Highly impractical”, Cas said, turning to the constable. “What about the scarecrow? His presence there seems redundant.”

The vicar blushed again.

“He was set up there when all this confrontation started”, he said. “Whoever did it dressed him in clothes similar to the ones His Lordship prefers, and even gave him a wig the same colour.”

“Probably annoyed them that he decided to let it be there”, the constable observed. “Reminds them whose field it is, I suppose.”

“Please tell us about the circumstances of the crime”, Cas said.  
   
“The body was found by Miss Dallas herself, out for her usual morning walk”, the policeman said. “Most distressing for the lady. She had the good sense not to touch the body, thankfully, and I only had a brief glimpse, but I rather think he had been out there all night. And there is something else. His Lordship had a hunting party into yesterday evening, and they were shooting down in the woods. He did, I should add, put up a red flag on the fence around the edge, but someone tore it down.”  
   
“So we must examine the body”, Cas said firmly. “Onto Miss Dallas.”  
   
+~+~+  
   
The constable had, if anything, understated matters. Miss Dallas refused point blank to allow anyone to look at her father’s body. At least, until Cas started on her.  
   
“I do not wish to add to your distress, madam”, he said in the sort of tone which implied ‘though I am about to’, “but in fairness, I must point out that your father was clearly trespassing when he was shot. Of course I would not expect Lord Fleet to want to cause you any further grief that you have already suffered, but we must consider that a crime has taken place on his property, and that he therefore has an interest.”  
   
She stared at him in horror.  
   
“You are saying he would force an examination?” she exclaimed. “That is vile!”  
   
“I am saying that we can circumvent such a thing if you would allow my friend the doctor to perform an examination”, Cas said soothingly. “He would accord your father all the dignity he deserves, and he could then be laid to the rest he has doubtless earned.”  
   
She still looked fearful, but nodded her assent. I went to get ready.  
   
III  
   
“Well?” Cas asked when I had finished.  
   
It had been a nervy examination, with Miss Dallas and a man I had learned was Mr. Mallow, the estate manager and a distant cousin of hers, waiting outside, presumably in case I started issuing tickets or something! Their lack of faith was irritating, but I was a professional, and I did my job. Once I had finished, I went to find Cas.

“Cause of death was a bullet to the heart”, I said. “But there is something strange.”

“Go on”, he said.

“The man was shot twice”, I said.

“And?”

“One shot was fired at close range; I found scorching around the entry wound, and the bullet was inside him. But he was also shot at a range of some distance. I would judge at least ten yards, for I found a small exit-wound on his back. Unfortunately I cannot say which shot came first, though logically the distant one is more likely.”

Cas frowned at that.

“Dean”, he said, “I need your honest opinion here. Would the local doctor have spotted that, had he been allowed to examine the body?”

I thought for a moment.

“I doubt it”, I said. “Especially if he had had that woman and her watchdog pressuring him like I did. And even if he did, he might feel compelled not to make an issue of it. I probably should not say that, but like the constable he has to live with these people.”

“This is serious”, Cas said. “We will sanction the release of the body to Miss Dallas tonight, but I think we might be better finding lodgings in Kirkcudbright, and coming here to resume our investigations tomorrow. We will not divulge your findings as such, save to say that we know that he was shot at a distance.”  
   
+~+~+  
   
The next day we visited Mazarin Hall, the home of Lord Fleet, who was pleased to welcome us. He was an alpha of about forty-five years of age, and I could see at once why someone had applied a dark wig to the scarecrow. It was almost as bad as the 'thing' that was apparently squatting on the top of the nobleman's head, which I fully expected to rear up and start waving at us!

Less pleased, quite clearly, was his son and heir Mr. Thomas Fleet, an alpha of barely twenty who made his opinion as to our presence quite clear. We were spared the wrathful presence of the estate manager Mr. Mallow, as he was down in the village with his cousin Miss Dallas.  
   
“Sandy has split loyalties”, Lord Fleet said, “being my employee and Charlotte’s cousin. But I made it clear that at times like these, his place is with family, not business.”

I noticed that Mr. Fleet shuffled awkwardly for some reason.  
   
“That was very high-minded of you”, Cas said. “Are they close cousins?”  
   
“I don’t think so”, our host said. “Third once removed, I believe.”  
   
“Please tell us about the field with the Mazarin Stone in it”, Cas said.  
   
“A lot of superstitious mumbo-jumbo”, Mr. Fleet snorted. “This is the twentieth century, for Heaven’s sake, yet they still believe in that rubbish. Father has been trying to buy the field for ages, but the owner refused to sell right up to his death last year. Fortunately his executors accepted a more than fair price for it, but of course the villagers complained they'd lost access to the Sands.”  
   
“What are the Sands?” I asked.  
   
“It’s the area around a small house owned by Mr. Creighton Dallas, the dead man's brother”, Lord Fleet said. “Now the only bit of property round here we don’t own; he can only access it by a road that goes under the railway and down then doubles back by the station. I suppose that the victim was on his way to visit him when he was killed.”  
   
“We should definitely talk to Mr. Creighton”, Cas said. “Would you mind if we explored the vicinity of the field today? I am afraid that the constable and his men have almost certainly trampled on any evidence there may have been around the stone, but we may still find something.”  
   
“If the doctor signs my books before he leaves”, the nobleman said, “that is fine!”  
   
+~+~+  
   
“We shall go to Mr. Creighton Dallas’ house first”, Cas said, “since we can work round the three sides of the field afterwards, and finish by the halt.”  
   
“That makes sense”, I said as we walked away from the big house. “What do you think of the case so far?”  
   
“I think that this may have been a very cleverly planned and well-executed murder”, he said grimly. “And proving it may be all but impossible!”  
   
We quickly reached the small and somewhat tumbledown cottage by the river. There was no road here, just a wooden bridge over the river to a path on the other side that almost immediately passed under the single-track line leading down to Kirkcudbright. 

Mr. Dallas was out in his garden, repairing a bench. He was a large red-headed alpha, middle-aged and very solidly built, who stood up as we approached, regarding us warily as if preparing for battle.  
   
“You’d be the gentlemen from London”, he said slowly. “You’d best come in.”  
   
We followed him into the small cottage, which was typical of many such bachelor places I had seen before. I wondered what Cas was going to ask this man, so once again, he surprised me.  
   
“The doctor has found certain irregularities in the death of your brother”, he said. “It is certain that he was shot at long distance, yet it is also the case that he was shot close at hand. Apart from yourself and his daughter, is there anyone else he would allow to get close to him, or for that matter, who might have motive to do such a thing?”  
   
Mr. Dallas thought for a moment.

IV  
   
“No”, he said flatly. “It wasn’t just that Alan kept a good house; even the drunks he threw out respected him for keeping order. He hadn’t an enemy in the world.”  
   
I refrained from stating the obvious fact that he must have acquired at least one somewhere along the line.  
   
“The shot from distance must have been fired with considerable accuracy”, Cas said. “Without wishing to cast aspersions, who is the best marksman in the area?”  
   
“Young Mr. Fleet, for sure”, our host said without hesitation. “Mr. Mallow trained him to start with, but then he went off to Dumfries and enrolled in some fancy school there. He could probably shoot the weathercock off the church from the Hall front door, if he was so inclined.”  
   
Cas nodded.    
“I understand that Lord Fleet has made you an offer to purchase this cottage”, he said. “May I be so bold as to ask what your intentions are in that direction?”  
   
The man looked at him warily.  
   
“I suppose I shall have to sell eventually”, he said. “I have long entertained thoughts about emigrating to the United States.”  
   
“I understand some transatlantic liners call in at Belfast, which is reached from Portpatrick, not far from here”, Cas said conversationally. “Well, I wish you good luck if you do decide to make the great move.”  
   
There was something unspoken between the two men, but I could not tell what it was. We made our farewells, and left.  
   
+~+~+  
   
“What motive could young Mr. Fleet have had?” I wondered as we walked back to the corner of the Mazarin Stone field. It was almost lunch-time, but a fog hung over the place blotting out much of the light, and the stone protruded eerily against the skyline.  
   
Cas seemed unusually thoughtful, and did not answer. Instead he led me back to the field to begin our examination of the area. We started at the riverside, and worked our way along one side of the field without finding anything. Halfway along the second side was where the path from the Hall crossed a gap in the hedge. Cas stopped and looked consideringly across at the stone in the distance.  
   
“The stone, and therefore the place the body was found, is about twenty yards from here”, he said. “From the angle, which way do you think the victim would have been facing when he was shot.”  
   
I thought back to my examination.  
   
“Towards the village”, I said firmly, Then I suddenly thought of something. “But why did he stop?”  
   
“What?”  
   
“The angle”, I echoed. “The path down to the village turns such that it immediately passes behind the stone and that creepy scarecrow, so the victim would have been out of sight in seconds. And he cannot have fired it from the other side of the field, because that is overlooked by the main road in the valley below. The victim must have stopped for some reason.”  
   
“I know”, he said, walking up to the stile. “I rather expected to find this.”  
   
He gestured to one of the posts, and looking closer, I could see that someone had cut a groove in the top. A groove that would be ideal for a gun.  
   
“Do you know who did it?” I asked.

“That depends on whether the next person I question can provide me with the evidence”, he said grimly. “Come!”

He strode across the field to the stone, but passed it and instead went straight to the scarecrow. I stared at him in confusion, then he reached down to the ground and picked something up.

It was a cartridge. I stared at it in shock.

“The shot that killed Mr. Dallas”, he said gravely. “If we hurry, we can catch the midday train down to Kirkcudbright, and have lunch there. I would rather not be around Mazarin for the next few days.”  
   
I was puzzled, but followed him anyway.  
   
+~+~+

Our inn at Kirkcudbright was basic but functional, and we had adjoining single rooms with a connecting door, which was good. I was not surprised therefore when Cas came to my room that night, and I smiled as he stood at the far end of the bed, slipping off his dressing-gown.

“I could do with a bed-warmer”, I grinned.

He gave me a feral look.

“I think some of that legend about the stone granting increased fertility may have been true after all”, he growled, his eyes dark with passion. “I am feeling the effects right now!”

“Well, I doubt you will get me pregnant!” I chuckled. “Come on in!”

He knelt at the end of the bed and reached for my entrance, then grinned. The base of the vibrator was there.

“You bad boy, doctor”, he said reprovingly. “I was looking forward to opening you up. Now I shall have to find that pleasure some other way.”

I grinned and waited for him to remove the vibrator and get down to business. I got the shock of my life when, after he had placed it beside us both, he hoisted my legs up and started applying his tongue around my entrance.

“Oh fuck!” I gasped.

“Eventually”, he grinned, his clever tongue forcing its way inside my ready hole. “But appetizers always come before the main course.”

And come I did, even before he was inside me, so hard my eyes watered. He paused in his attentions and grinned at me from between my legs. Then, to my annoyance, he slid the vibrator back in and began to move up my chest, licking away my come as he did so. I groaned in anticipation, and he gently bit one of my nipples, making me hard again in short order. He chuckled.

“I wonder if I can get you to come a second time without even being inside of you?” he mused. I was about to object when I felt his hand tickling at the base of my cock, teasing my prostate from outside whilst the vibrator nudged it from within.

I came again, this time more feebly but catching him across the face. He grinned at me, then removed it and began to rub it into his skin, scenting himself from me. 

“Cas!” I hissed. 

“I think twice is enough for one night, Dean”, he said, edging backwards. “I had better leave you with that inside you, so you can recover....”

I growled fiercely, and dragged the vibrator out myself, not even noticing the pain. 

“If you don't get inside me in the next sixty seconds”, I snarled, “I am withholding sex for a week!”

He gave a dirty chuckle.

“I doubt you could withhold it for ten minutes, Dean”, he teased. “But as you wish.”

And with that he sheathed himself inside of me in one swift movement, and came almost at once, sighing his release into the darkness of the room. My cock twitched feebly, but there was no way I was going to manage three orgasms in so short a time-space, and I had to be content to just lie there whilst he gently pulled out and draped himself over me before almost immediately falling fast asleep.

I was happy. So very, very happy.

V

A week passed, and Cas and I paid occasional visits to Mazarin, but did not seem to actually do much. The only development of note was that Mr. Creighton Dallas did decide to sell his cottage to Lord Fleet, and announced his intention to follow his dream to the United States after his late brother's funeral. That event was well-attended in the village, I understand, although for obvious reasons Cas and I stayed away. The upside of that was that the fertility effects of the stone continued to work their wonders, which was wonderful except for those times when I sat down too quickly.  
   
It was January the tenth when I (very gingerly) came down to breakfast at our hotel in Kirkcudbright to find Cas looking grave.  
   
“There has been a further incident at the Mazarin Stone”, he said. “Two deaths this time. Miss Dallas and Mr. Mallow.”  
   
“We must go at once!” I said.  
   
“Calm yourself, doctor”, he said. “Constable McGyver has arranged for a sergeant to come up from the town police station, and he will be calling in half an hour to take us, rather than wait for the first train of the day. We just have time for breakfast.”  
   
I was relieved at that, for I was rather hungry, though I suspected that the crispy bacon this place served may just have encouraged Cas to delay our departure. I devoured my own food quickly, and we were waiting outside when a police carriage drew up. The man inside was Sergeant Glenmarrick, and he was visibly relieved to see us.  
   
“This is very bad, gentlemen”, he said. “Three deaths, all by the stone. People are talking.”  
   
“I doubt there is any power on earth that would stop that, sergeant”, Cas said. “I hope an examination of the bodies will yield some clues, though I do have a fairly good idea as to what happened. But let us not get ahead of ourselves. We shall see what we shall see.”  
   
It was another cold Gallowegian morning, and our journey was slowed somewhat by the heavy fog, but we eventually turned off the main road and along the by-road down into Mazarin. I found the bumpy road particularly uncomfortable, and matters (and the ache in my poor backside) were not helped by Cas' knowing smirk. We passed over the railway and stopped by the field, where the village constable was standing some distance from the stone.  
   
I quickly examined the bodies. Mr. Mallow had been shot in the chest, at some distance again as there was no scorching, whilst Miss Dallas, some two yards away, had been shot in the back, presumably whilst trying to flee. Cas looked at the two bodies with that expressionless look on his face that told me he was hiding something. I knew him well by now.

A sudden pain in my backside reminded me that yes, I knew him very well!  
   
“Has someone tried to contact Mr. Creighton Dallas?” Cas asked, mercifully dragging my mind out of its seemingly preferred location in the gutter.  
   
The constable shook his head.  
   
“He left last night, taking the train to Castle Douglas”, he said. “His ticket was for Portpatrick, but I telegraphed the ferry offices there and at Stranraer, and neither of them had a booking in his name. He was definitely gone before all this went down though; Parks, the stationmaster at the junction, saw him on his way.”  
   
Cas nodded.  
   
“Let us go to the police station”, he said. “It is bitterly cold here. And once we are in the warm, I may have some ideas as to who has committed this crime.”  
   
“You have a solution?” the sergeant asked.  
   
“I have two!” he said.  
   
+~+~+  
   
“Gentlemen, I promised you two solutions to this crime”, Cas said, sitting before a roaring fire, “and two you shall have. Which one you choose to reveal to the public is up to you, of course, but please hear me out fully before deciding.”  
   
“Of course”, the sergeant said.  
   
“Very well”, Cas said. “My first solution is a little rough, but it covers the facts. A certain fanatical Irish nationalist recently escaped from a London jail, and sought a part of the country where he could lie low for a bit whilst having a chance of crossing to the Emerald Isle. Having made sure he was seen in the Liverpool area, and making police think he was looking to make the crossing there, he came north and headed for Portpatrick. Unfortunately his hiding-place was disturbed, first by Mr. Alan Dallas, and later by his daughter and Mr. Mallow. All three paid for their mistakes with their lives, the terrorist then making his escape from the area.”

The two policemen stared at him incredulously.

“That's it?” Constable McGyver asked.

“It seems unlikely”, the sergeant agreed. “Where was he hiding, exactly?”

“It is just a possible solution”, Cas said. “As is my other one. But I think you will like that somewhat less. Very well.”

VI

He hesitated before continuing.

“The doctor put his finger on the nub of the problem of Mr. Alan Dallas' murder when he remarked that the victim must have been standing still at the time of his shooting, as due to the angle of the wound, there would only have been a short time between his turning and disappearing from view of the stile from which he was shot. However, we did know that there was an excellent marksman in the area.”

“Mr. Fleet”, I said. Cas shook his head.

“I was thinking of the man who first trained him, Mr. Mallow”, he said. “We know from the entry wound that the victim was most likely headed towards the village, but stopped for some reason. Now why would he do that? It was dark, cold and wet, and no-one in their senses would be inclined to linger. I believe that he reached the stone and saw someone coming towards him.”

“An accomplice?” the constable asked. Cas nodded.

“We know the man was armed with a knife, and if a stranger approached him in the dark, he would naturally draw it as a precaution. His knife was found sheathed and in his pocket. Hence this person had to be someone not only known to them, but someone from whom he did not feel endangered. Only one person matches that description. His own daughter.”

“What?” we all exclaimed.

“By delaying him, she enabled her confederate Mr. Mallow to obtain a clean shot”, Cas said. “At the distance the shot was fired, it went clean through Mr. Dallas, killing him almost immediately. The spent cartridge fell to the ground, and was doubtless searched for by his killers, but unfortunately for them it had rolled under the scarecrow and out of sight. Still, they continued with their plan. A distant shooting would suggest Mr. Mallow's involvement, so the dead man was shot a second time, close up. Miss Dallas takes an early morning walk, and 'finds' her father's body, insisting on no examination. She believes, probably correctly, that the local doctor will not find anything, or even if he does he will keep quiet and say nothing. Imagine her annoyance when the local vicar, whom she probably knew was seeking my aid, returns with me just hours after the shooting. She had hoped to have her father laid to rest before I arrived.”

“But who then shot her and Mr. Mallow?” I asked.

“Mr. Creighton Dallas”, he said. “As I knew he would.”

“Wait a minute”, the constable said. “Mr. Creighton left yesterday. And I told you Parks saw him at the junction.”

“I would venture to suggest that he took the train to Castle Douglas Junction, then alighted at the first station, Crossmichael, and walked back here”, Cas said. “It is but a few miles across country, nothing to someone with his stamina. A near-perfect alibi.”

“What did you mean, you knew he would?” the sergeant asked.

Cas looked at him gravely.

“Consider the evidence, sergeant”, he said slowly. “There is next to none. No jury would have convicted – but when I told Mr. Creighton Dallas certain facts, he very quickly pieced together that his niece and her lover had killed his brother. Having access to his brother's house, I would say that he used his time to search for the gun his niece used, and when he found it, he knew for sure. He most probably arranged to meet one of them by the stone where they killed his brother, then sent the other to them with a message they he could not make it. Once they were there he confronted them with what they had done, and shot them both in quick succession. He is probably on his way to Ireland and then the United States, though almost certainly not via Portpatrick. You may of course wish to pursue him – or you may choose my first solution, in which case the doctor and I would back you up with the local people.”

The sergeant looked at the constable and hesitated.

“It's justice”, the constable said slowly. “He's right. They'd have gotten away with it.”

The sergeant nodded, and turned back to Cas.

Will you stay here one more day and help spread the news about our 'fugitive'?” he asked.

“Of course”, Cas smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”

+~+~+

Postscript: Mr. Creighton Dallas made it to the United States, where he settled in to the life of an estate manager in New England. He died in nineteen hundred and sixteen, and one clause in his will led his executors to send a note of thanks to Cas and myself for our actions that time in Galloway, and to request publication of this story.

+~+~+

Next, our last adventure from dear old Baker Street – in which a wife and a mistress form a most unusual alliance to protect the man they both love.


	10. Case 117: Heart (1904)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously published as 'The Adventure of the Creeping Man'.

I

Of course, it had to happen. Eight months without a major case since our return from Kirkcudbrightshire, then just as all the arrangements for our 'great escape' were coming together, we had one. And somewhat ironically it took us back to just a few miles north of Oxford, where I had met Cas thirty long years ago.  
   
Three decades, I thought as I looked at him across the breakfast table. His impossible hair was flecked with grey now, but it only made him look even more distinguished. And as untidy as ever, although that was more probably due to….  
   
Damn it, he was looking at me with that knowing smile of his again! Trust my luck to end up with a mind-reader!  
   
My thoughts were interrupted by the announcement of some visitors. This was not that surprising; it was Saturday, and at weekends we always had a late breakfast after sleeping in and…. and I was thinking of It again! Damnation!  
   
Fortunately the arrival of our visitors managed to drag my mind out of the gutter it seemed so fond of whenever the blue-eyed genius was around. Our visitors were both well-dressed ladies in their thirties, though one was clearly much richer than the other, judging from the fineness of her apparel. And also pregnant; four to five months, I judged. I wondered as to how they were related.  
   
The answer came as something of a surprise.  
   
“My name is Lady Ursula Bradstock”, the finely-dressed lady said, “and this is Miss Katherine Kelley. We have a somewhat unusual case for you, gentlemen, and we hope you would consider taking it.”  
   
Cas looked between the two women, and of course being Cas, he got it. Which was more than I did.  
   
“Queen Alexandra”, he muttered, which cleared things up not at all. Both ladies smiled.  
   
“I think you tease your poor friend too much, just as in his stories”, Miss Kelley said playfully. “To explain, doctor, I am the mistress of Ursula’s husband Lord Thomas, who in turn is the youngest son of Nathaniel, Earl of Bradstock. I had a son by him earlier this year, James, and he has promised to support him as he grows up.”  
   
“And now I am expecting too”, Lady Bradstock, said with a smile, “although if you could not detect that, this would be a short meeting indeed!”  
   
I smiled. I understood the royal reference now; the public had come to love the Danish-born queen for the blind eye she turned to her husband’s frequent foreign dalliances.  
   
“The reason we are here”, Lady Bradstock continued, “is our concerns over my husband and Kitty’s lover. I should explain at this point that the earldom is rather oddly placed when it comes to inheritance law. The title goes naturally to the eldest son, but the bulk of the estate around Stalwarton, where my father-in-law lives, can be willed to any direct male line descendant at the whim of the current holder. Furthermore, the estate has prospered greatly in the last ten years due to some wise investments in gold and diamond mines in southern Africa, so there is much to inherit.”  
   
“And your father-in-law can will it to any of his sons”, Cas said. “Grandsons?”  
   
Lady Bradstock shook her head.  
   
“Tom has two older brothers, Vaughan and Errol”, she said. “Vaughan is twenty-eight, Errol twenty-seven and my husband twenty-four. There is further tension due to the fact that Tom is an alpha whilst they are both betas. Both my brothers-in-law are single, although both are courting young ladies. It is recent events which have concerned me, and when I found they were also occurring during his time with Kitty, we decided to come to you at once.”  
   
“I see”, Cas said. “Pray continue, please.”  
   
“The estate also has some minor interests in Cornwall”, Lady Bradstock said, “and this spring the earl decided to pay them a visit. You may remember that it was unseasonably damp this year, and he returned with a chill, which he was unable to shake off for some weeks. I should not speak ill of the man who has been so kind to me, but I am afraid dear Nathaniel does tend to put things off, and avoid matters which are better dealt with sooner rather than later. Though we do not know, it seems that he has not made any decision yet, which would mean the bulk of the estate would be divided equally amongst his three sons.”  
   
“But something has happened to prevent that”, Cas said shrewdly, “or you would not both be here today. What is it?”  
   
Lady Bradstock looked at Miss Kelley, who took out a notebook and opened it.  
   
“When Ursula told me, I realized that it had happened with me first”, she said. “June the twenty-seventh. It was just after the earl had fully recovered. Tom came down to London for the weekend.”  
   
“Alone?” Cas asked.  
   
“He came with his brothers, but they only stayed one night at the family's London house before travelling on to some business they had in Kent”, she said. “He was with me on Saturday after my performance – I am an actress, and this was at the Gaumont in Shaftesbury Avenue – and when I got back to my dressing-room, he was creeping and crawling all over the floor. It quite shocked me, but he refused to call a doctor, and after a night’s rest he seemed to have recovered.”  
   
“What did he say was wrong with him?” I inquired.  
   
“He seemed unable to stand up, or even sit up”, Miss Kelley said. “It was most worrisome, but he was right as rain the next day, so we just thought it was something he ate. His brothers had taken him to a new restaurant the night before, he said.”  
   
“I see”, Cas said. “What happened next?”  
   
“The same thing happened exactly one month later when he was with me, on July the twenty-seventh”, Lady Bradstock said. “He was very bad, and so convinced he was dying that he told me all about Kitty and James, who had not long been born. I was more concerned with seeing him through it, but as with Kitty, he was perfectly fine the following morning.”  
   
“Where were you at the time?” Cas asked.  
   
“Visiting Tom’s brother Errol and his lady friend, Miss Barnett”, she said. “She has a house in the village of Cleveley, in the north of Oxfordshire, not far from Stalwarton.”  
   
Cas pressed his fingers together and thought for a moment.  
   
“Was the next attack on August the twenty-sixth, by any chance?” he asked Lady Bradstock.  
   
She stared at him in shock.  
   
“How did you know that?” she demanded.  
   
“It seemed probable”, he said. “Where did it take place?”  
   
“That was what prompted me to seek out Kitty, which was just as well”, Lady Bradstock said grimly. “It happened at the Hall, right in front of the earl. Poor Tom just collapsed in his chair without warning, and had to be carried out.”  
   
“And presumably he had recovered the following morning?” Cas asked.  
   
“He was able to stand, but he was not himself”, she said. “His recovery was definitely slower.”  
   
Cas nodded.  
   
“I have two questions”, he said. “First, to you, Lady Bradstock. From your knowledge of the earl, would you say he is superstitious?”  
   
She looked surprised at the question, but nodded.  
   
“He is rather”, she said. “There is this family curse which dates back to the Middle Ages, that the line will die out if there is more than one lord of Stalwarton with the same Christian name. A silly superstition one might say, except the only time a lord of the manor tried to break it, he and his family were wiped out in the English Civil War. Upon the Restoration, the title passed to a cousin.”  
   
“I see”, Cas said. “My second question is to you both, and may seem strange, but I have a reason for asking it. Has Mr. Thomas Bradstock been shaving any more of late?”

II

Both ladies looked understandably confused. The actress recovered first.

“Now you come to mention it, he did seem to be shaving more often than usual”, she said. She looked across at Lady Bradstock, who nodded in confirmation.

“Do you expect another attack soon?” the latter asked anxiously.

Castiel looked at the calendar.

“Today is September the seventh”, he said. “The next attack should not happen until the twenty-fourth, which is a Friday. That gives us some time. Ladies, I need to know something about Lord Thomas. Does he have any weaknesses, perhaps foods or drink he is particularly partial to?”

“Fudge”, both ladies said simultaneously, before they both laughed. Miss Kelley gestured for Lady Bradstock to go first. 

“He can’t get enough of it”, she said. “The local doctor has warned him about his weight, but unfortunately when he accompanied his father down to Cornwall, he brought back a ton of it. But I have insisted he purchase a rowing-machine from London, and that he works out on it every day. He hides the dratted stuff all around the house, so preventing him from consuming it is all but impossible!”  
   
“And there is a very exclusive chocolatier near to the Gaumont, which he loves to visit”, Miss Kelley confirmed. “It really is the devil’s work to keep him away from it.”  
   
Cas’ eyes twinkled. I knew that look.  
   
“On the contrary”, he grinned. “Fudge may very well be what saves his life!”

Both ladies looked at him in astonishment.  
   
+~+~+

Some days later, I was writing up some notes when a package came for Cas, Upon opening it he smiled, then came over to me and placed the paper bag he had extracted from it on my desk the open end towards me. Inside was a gentleman's hair-brush.

“I would like you to test that for me”, he said. “It is related to the Bradstock case.”

“What am I looking for?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“That would defeat the purpose of the test”, he said. “I know what you should find, but I would like you to test it and then come and tell me what you found.”

I shrugged, put away my notes and went to fetch my testing kit.

+~+~+

“Well?” he asked, once I had finished.

“The hair is from a middle-aged male, who is being constantly exposed to low levels of a mildly toxic chemical compound”, I said. “I think there may be other chemicals involved, but of too small an amount to be identified. With what I have, I can only be certain of the one. It is not of course available to buy, but someone who knew of its existence would, fairly easily, be able to extract it from pills that are available.”

“That is enough for me”, he said grimly. “It is as I feared. We are fortunate that we shall be able to close this case before we leave.”

I looked at him in surprise, but clearly he was going to say no more.

+~+~+

Two days after that, it was Cas' birthday, his fiftieth. It would have been good for us to have moved to our new home on that day, but because they were dependent on the cottage owner reaching his own birthday at the end of the month, the legal documents could not be signed off until then. 

Cas, as usual, woke up as horny as always, and within minutes was coming inside of me, falling into me with a happy grunt. Then he felt my still-erect cock, and frowned.

“You have the ring on”, he said, clearly surprised. “Do you not wish to come too?”

I kissed him and reached over for the collar, which I only wore on rare occasions. It was not something any normal alpha would wear, especially in public, but for Cas I would do anything. I clipped it on and kissed him again.

“I have arranged with Mrs. Lindberg for our meals to be left outside today, and for no-one to be allowed up”, I said softly. “I want you inside of me for as much of today as is possible, and I want you to own me all day. I have always been yours, Cas, and I always will be.”

He seemed as emotional as I was feeling about this, and pushed against my prostate as he cuddled into my chest. I smiled and braced myself for a long, hard day.

We had a wonderful time, not just limited to the bedroom. It apparently was possible to walk around our main room whilst Cas remained inside of and half a step behind me, though when we both sat in his fireside chair, it creaked ominously, discouraging any vigorous action. Though Cas only had to shift slightly to hit my prostate and I moaned so loudly that they probably heard me through the thick walls! Eating whilst impaled was tricky, but worth it for the thrill of Cas trying to get me to break through the cock-ring. 

(Before anyone says anything, I should add that I did actually buy Cas a present as well, a gold locket with tiny drawings of the two of us that a professional artist had done for me. Though I only gave it to him at the end of the day, and he rewarded me by removing the cock-ring. He then had to hold back my orgasm and release it little by little, otherwise I might well have ruptured myself!).

We finally went to bed that night, and slept wrapped around each other, content with our lot in life. All right, not just content but blissfully, serenely otherworldly happy. And so close to our own happy ending.

+~+~+  
   
Some days later, Cas and I went to Paddington Station, where as planned we met Miss Kelley. The three of us then journeyed up to Oxford, from where we took a local train to the little market town of King’s Linton. The Forston, Milton and Wolfstown Railway did continue to serve Stalwarton, but Cas did not want to go there just yet.  
   
In the Grease Monkey Inn (honestly, modern pub names!), we met as arranged with Lady Ursula.  
   
“You are certain that this will work?” she asked anxiously.  
   
“Quite certain”, Cas said. “Did you bring it?”  
   
She opened her case and extracted a large box of fudge, which she handed over to him, and he passed onto me. I took it, labelled it and placed it on my bag alongside the one we have obtained earlier from Miss Kelley before leaving London.  
   
“You are going to explain all this to us, Mr. Novak?” she asked.  
   
“Of course”, Cas said. “Your husband is being poisoned, most likely by his two brothers.”  
   
She stared at him in shock.  
   
“What makes you say that?” she said at last.  
   
“Tomorrow is the twenty-fourth, is it not?” he said.  
   
“Er, yes.”  
   
“Then that is when they will make their next attack on him. Except that it will go wrong.”  
   
“What do you mean?” she asked.  
   
He sat back.

III  
   
“Shortly, the doctor will be taking this fatal confectionery back down to Oxford, where he will test them at the hospital before returning here”, he said. “The chemical in them is, I would wager, in itself relatively harmless. But when combined with a certain other chemical, the result on the person unfortunate enough to imbibe them both is dramatic. It involves two things; complete loss of bodily control, and rapid hair growth all over the body. Though I have not met him, I would wager the earl did not take well to seeing his youngest son struck down in this way.”  
   
“But the other chemical?” Lady Bradstock pushed.  
   
“The doctor will bring his test results back this evening”, Cas said. “Unless they contain something very surprising, then the other chemical will also be harmless. It is the combination that has the effect – which brings me to the matter in hand. I would assume that your brothers-in-law would want to administer it away from your eyes, to be on the safe side, so one presumes it would be done when the gentlemen adjourn after dinner. Does your husband take port?”  
   
“He hates it with a passion”, she said firmly. “He has lemon juice, which I suppose is quite sharp, and would hide the taste of anything.”  
   
“It will be difficult, but you will need to keep an eye on your husband today”, Cas said. “However, I do not expect anything to be tried until tomorrow.”  
   
“Why?” Miss Kelley asked. “And how did you know the date of the August attack?”  
   
“It ties in with my question as to the superstitious nature of the earl”, Cas said with a smile. “Belief in werewolves, especially in country areas, is surprisingly strong, even amongst the nobility. The dates of the first three attacks were the last three Full Moons, and tomorrow night is the next one. I feel sure that Mr. Errol and Mr. Vaughan have lost no time in reminding their father of that fact. Now, we will have some tea and cakes, although the doctor, regrettably for him, must hasten back to the city of dreaming spires and his tests.”  
   
I pouted, and they all laughed. But then I found that Cas arranged for a boxed whole apple-pie to be ready take with me, so I forgave him.  
   
+~+~+  
   
When I reached the hospital (feeling a little full with all that pie), I was surprised to find a second sample had been sent there for me to test, which I assumed must have been Cas' other chemical. Naturally I shall not disclose the names of the substances in question, save to say that Cas was (as ever) correct in his assumption. Separate these chemicals were indeed harmless, but together.... well, someone had been both evil and smart. I wondered how Cas had obtained the second chemical, but decided that I was probably better off not knowing.  
   
+~+~+  
   
The following morning, Lady Bradstock sent her carriage for us as agreed, and the two of us were driven up to Stalwarton Hall (for obvious reasons we saw Miss Kelley off on the train back to London, though Cas promised to telegraph her as soon as possible as to what happened). The hall was a charming grey-stone building, not overly large for an ancestral home, set on a slight hill above a model village of some eleven identical cottages and a timber-framed inn, The Stalwart. The River Cherwell gleamed in the summer sun not far to the west, and it was hard to believe we were barely five miles from the hustle and bustle of Oxford.  
   
Lady Bradstock herself came out to greet us and usher us in. Once inside we met the rest of the family, who were much as she had described. Her husband was young and smartly-dressed, definitely tending towards portliness (the fudge!) and had hair that was almost as bad as Cas’. His two elder brothers both had the brown hair I could see in the many portraits in the entrance-hall, and neither looked that pleased to see us. We were shown into the earl’s room, where an alpha in his sixties was sat by the fire.  
   
“Mr. Novak, Doctor Winchester”, he said gruffly. “What brings you to our neck of the woods, gentlemen? I do hope you have not found any dead bodies lying around.”  
   
“Not yet, Your Grace”, Cas said amiably, “though I am here in a somewhat unusual capacity.”  
   
The earl looked at him in surprise.  
   
“Please explain”, he said warily.  
   
“In my line of work”, Cas said, “it is usual that we start with a dead body, and then have to work out, as the detective novels mangle the English language in saying, ‘who done it’. Writers these days! This time, however, I have managed to prevent a crime.”  
   
“This time?” the earl said sharply. “Here?”  
   
“Indeed”, Cas said. “The wrongful disinheritance of a faithful and, above all else, healthy son.”  
   
The earl’s eyes narrowed.  
   
“You are referring to Tom and his problems, I suppose”, he said. “Humph! And what business is that of yours, sir?”  
   
“If it involves a peer of the realm being duped, it becomes my business”, Cas said. “I would like to show you something, but I warn you, you will not be pleased with it.”  
   
He produced from his pocket the two bottles of chemicals I had brought back from the hospital the night before. He placed them on the table next to his chair.  
   
“I will not bore you with long names which will mean nothing to you”, he said. “Let us call these simply Chemical A and Chemical B. Each, on its own, is relatively harmless. However, when they are imbibed at the same time, the result is anything but. The unlucky person who has both in their bloodstream loses all muscular control for a period of approximately twelve hours, and the growth of their body hair increases substantially.”

The earl raised his eyebrows, but did not interrupt.

“As with all poisons, the body works to expel it, most usually through the hair”, Cas said. “When she called me in on this case, I questioned Lady Ursula about her husband's so-called attacks, and reasoned what was happening. I asked her for his hair-brush with as much hair as she could, and the doctor here tested it for me. Lord Thomas has been exposed to constant low levels of Chemical A for at least the past three months, it having been dosed into the fudge he has a weakness for.”  
   
Lord Thomas blushed.  
   
“How did it get there?” the earl asked.  
   
“It was injected by syringe”, Cas explained. “Which brings me to the less salubrious part of my visit. I am sorry to say that a few nights ago, whilst you were all sleeping, I employed the professional burglary services of one of the top men in his profession in London. He, or rather his superior, owed me a favour, and I cashed it in.”

Mr. Crowley's other favour, I remembered.  
   
“Why?” the earl demanded.  
   
“For two reasons”, Cas said. “Firstly, I wanted to see if Lord Thomas’ elder brothers had any of Chemical B in their possession. I struck gold, as the saying goes; my man found not only the chemical but syringes that contained traces of that chemical. It was relatively easy for Lord Vaughan and Lord Errol to dose their younger brother's food and drink with Chemical B, and they were careful to always do it on Full Moon nights, suggesting to their father that perhaps all those stories about werewolves are not stories after all. The whole was aimed at making you their father doubt his suitability as an heir.”  
   
“This is all lies, father!” Lord Vaughan said hotly. “What proof is there? The word of this man?”  
   
Cas turned slowly on him. The nobleman backed away.  
   
“Well”, he said, his tone icy, “we shall know very soon. Won't we?”  
   
“What do you mean?” the earl said.  
   
“I spoke with Lady Ursula yesterday”, Cas smiled, “and we set a little trap. After some consideration, we decided upon the crystallized ginger that her two brothers’-in-law so preferred, and that no-one else in the house liked. There seemed a delicious irony in that they had tried to poison him through his favourite sweet, and justice would come at them through theirs.”  
   
“What justice?” Lord Errol demanded, looking very pale.  
   
“Lady Ursula replaced the normal crystallized ginger at the breakfast table with sweets that had been dosed with exactly the same chemicals that you dosed your brother with”, Cas smiled. “So if you truly are innocent and it was all a practical joke, all well and good. But if you did try to poison him – then you should be about to have – sorry, doctor, but I am going to say it – a most hair-raising experience!”  
   
The earl turned to his two elder sons.  
   
“Is this true?” he demanded.  
   
Their silence spoke volumes. Both hung their heads.  
   
“I think you both need to be away from here for a long time”, the earl said coldly. “My interests in South Africa need closer watch. You will go there. This week.”  
   
Both men bowed their heads, and left without a word. The earl turned to Cas.  
   
“How can I ever thank you?” he said.  
   
“Thank Lady Ursula”, Cas smiled. “I think the doctor and I both agree that she is a most remarkable lady!”  
   
IV

We returned that same day, and resumed packing. Mercifully we would not be losing contact with the Lindbergs, as we would be within an easy drive of Eastbourne, whence the Singers had moved. We spent our last ever night in 221B, making love slowly and passionately.

The following morning, our bags were packed and stood ready by the door. Whilst we waited for the cab we had ordered to arrive, we both looked around the rooms we would probably never see again. Despite the love I felt for the cottage on the downs, I still felt sad at leaving the scene of so many of our adventures.

“Our home”, I said, almost sadly. 

Cas looked at his watch.

“The cab will be here in five minutes”, he said. “We should say goodbye to the old place.”

I was about to agree when he suddenly pulled me into a kiss, his tongue pushing into my mouth. I was feeling a little weakened as he had scented me after my shower that morning, and that always affected me so. He pushed me back against the door, and continued his assault.

I moaned in pleasure, then again as I felt his hand working inside my trousers and underpants. Those long fingers of his wrapped around my rapidly-hardening cock, and began to jerk me off. I was putty in those hands, and only his support kept me from collapsing to the floor as he jerked me towards an orgasm that left me breathless. He grinned at me, and wiped his hand on the inside of my underpants before withdrawing it.

“You have the worst timing!” I said. “The cab-driver will hate us!”

“At least you can remember our last moments here with fondness”, he grinned unabashedly. “Or at least remember the fondling. Besides, I need to keep you on your toes, old man.”

“I'm only two and a half years older than you”, I grumbled, pulling myself back together as best I could. “And why?”

He opened the door and picked up his bag. Most of our luggage had gone on ahead the previous day, and we each had only one bag left. Our personal possessions had gone then too, but even so, it felt a wrench to leave a place I had been so happy.

“Because we have to spend this evening christening the new cottage as its owners!” he grinned, slipping away before I could say anything.

Then again, there were things to be said for moving house.....

+~+~+

The journey to the cottage seemed interminably long – I was grateful we went via Oxted and Eridge rather than Tonbridge, even if it entailed an additional change - but we finally rolled into our little wayside halt, where the carriage Cas had arranged took us the last few miles to our new home.

Our home. Such wonderful words. Two late middle-aged – not old! - men in their fifties, one of whom had done so much good in the world. We deserved our retirement.

I could not know that we would in fact have three – well, two and a half - more adventures together. But even had I known, I would have endured it. For my Cas.

+~+~+

Postscript: The earl kept his word, and his two oldest sons were dispatched on the 'SS Cameroon' to the Dark Continent. It seems however that a higher power decided on a rather greater punishment, for they went down with that ship off the coast of Liberia. The earl died soon after, and Lord Thomas succeeded to the title and the estate at Stalwarton, where he continues to prosper. His wife was safely delivered of a son just days after his accession, and they named him Cassius.  
   
+~+~+

We had two happy years before the first of the three cases that briefly disturbed our retirement, and the first was, I must admit, totally my own fault. That and the fact that I could not live without a certain man in my life.....


End file.
